Emeriti Professor René Schwarzenbach

After his retirement in January 2011 Prof. em. René Schwarzenbach served as head and delegate of the steering board of the competence centre of environment and sustainability (CCES) of the ETH domain (until 2016), as Associate Vice President for Sustainability at ETH Zurich and as president of the „International Sustainable Campus Network“ (ISCN) (2011-2014). From 2016 and 2022 he was president oft the platform „Science and Policy“ (SAP) of the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences (ScNat). Until March 2022 he was also a permanent guest of the scientific advisory board of the Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, Germany in which he served for more than 20 years.

Before his retirement, René P. Schwarzenbach was a full professor of Environmental Chemistry in the Department of Environmental Sciences (D-UWIS), presently the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS), at ETH Zurich. Between 2004 and 2010 he served as department head of D-UWIS. Between 2001 and 2010 he was also a scientific councilor and since 2006 president of division IV of the Swiss National Science Foundation, and between 2005 and 2016 member oft the councel of the University of Konstanz in Germany.

Born in December 1945, René Schwarzenbach earned his diploma degree in 1970 from the Chemistry Department at ETH Zurich where he also got his PhD in 1973. He spent two postdoctoral years at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (USA). In 1977, he accepted a position at the EAWAG, where he headed the department for interdisciplinary limnological research for several years and also served on the board of directors until April 2005. In 1984, he completed his habilitation at ETH Zurich, where he was elected as full professor in 1989. In 1992, he was awarded the Körber Prize, together with four colleagues from Germany, France and Switzerland. In 2000, he was elected as an original member of the ISI Highly Cited Researchers Database, and he won the SETAC Environmental Education Award in 2001 and the Award for "Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technology" of the American Chemical Society in 2006.

The research, teaching, and consulting activities of his group focused primarily on the distribution, fate and effects of organic pollutants in the natural environment. The research addressed fundamental chemical as well as multidisciplinary system-oriented aspects. In his teaching, he aims to build bridges between the molecular world and macroscopic systems. His textbook "Environmental Organic Chemistry" that he authored together with two colleagues from MIT and ETH Zurich, and that won the "Chemistry Book of the Year Award" of the Association of American Publishers in 1994, has established itself as the standard text in the field of environmental organic chemistry. The third, completely revised edition of the book appears in November 2016.

Science and Society

Schwarzenbach has also been the editor of two science books for the general public, introducing environmental challenges we face as a society using a combination of straight-forward text and numerous, vivid pictorial layouts.

 

Who Owns the Water?

Book Who Owns the Water

Lars Müller Publishers, 2006

Industrialization and population growth have brought about a global water crisis. Nature can no longer compensate the exploitation of our freshwater and our oceans. One billion people have no reliable access to clean drinking water; two billion live in precarious hygienic conditions. Famine, poverty, epidemics, and infant mortality are closely linked with the water crisis. Social, ecological, political, and economic conflicts obstruct efforts to resolve the global water crisis. Water is an instrument of power. The key question reads: Is water a commodity or is free access to water an inalienable human right? By approaching water from a phenomenological perspective, Who owns the Water? seeks to persuade the reader that an element that is constantly flowing and changing defies all claims to own it, be they political or economic, and is instead the responsibility of the entire international community.

The book introduces water, the Earth’s blood, unveils its molecular secrets, and explains how it cycles and affects climate. The issues of a dwindling water supply, food production, poisoned waters, and the privatization of water are discussed. As the United Nations reports; "The scarcity of fresh, clean water is the greatest threat that humanity has ever exposed to," this book is a timely and powerful call to us all to educate ourselves about the future of our water - who should own it?

ETH-Zürich news article about the book

Enlarged view: Book For Climates Sake

 

For Climate's Sake!: Who's in Charge of the Future?

(English version)

Lars Müller Publishers, 2011

For Climate’s Sake! sets itself the goal of conveying the knowledge revealed by current climate research in a manner that is both concise and appealing. It differs from other books on climate change principally in the way it is conceived as a visual reader that deliberately uses the effectiveness and power of the image to present the theme in a graphic way. Extensive series of images with large photographs and informative diagrams accompany well-researched essays on and around the themes of climate history, research and policy and thus offer an in-depth examination.

The book provides insights into the history of the earth’s climate and reveals the factors that are responsible for climate change. It poses questions and provides answers: why is the earth becoming warmer? What are the consequences we must reckon with? What can we do against this? Who determines the future? As both a volume of illustrations and a reader For Climate’s Sake! Is directed at all those who want to equip themselves with knowledge and understanding to confront what is probably our planet’s most pressing problem.

ETH-Zürich news article about the book

Get your copy of the books in bookstores, by dropping by the office CHN E26.1 at ETH-Zürich, or by ordering online from external pageLars Müller Publishers or other online bookstores, such as Amazon. Additional editors of the books include Klaus Lanz, Lars Müller, and Christian Rentsch.

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