the popular quest for a cleaner environment rallied behind the notion that simple, low-tech solutions were the world's only hope. For many of us in the greener-is-better camp, technology was the enemy, chemicals were

It just so happens that the 1960s were also the years when the Department of Chemistry began recruiting materials scientists, people who were certainly not low-tech. Not only were they chemists, but many were polymer chemists. They were studying, among other things, ways to make plastics. For those of us in the greener-is-better camp, what could have been worse?

And yet this is the very group that now seems poised to deliver on some of the environmental movement's fondest dreams. It took a polymer chemist and his colleagues to invent a way to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals in the cleaning industry and replace them with something as ingeniously benign as carbon dioxide and soap.

And what about energy? Surely one of the most optimistic ideas in human history is the notion that our appetite for energy could be satisfied by the sun. For decades, much of the solar sector slogged along in a low-tech malaise characterized by weird contraptions and wishful thinking. Many people lost the faith. Meanwhile, chemists were studying the principles behind that elegant engine of nature, photosynthesis. The power of the biomass, the power of every fossil fuel, was not sunlight alone. It was chemistry, too. And if the age of green energy arrives at last, it may well dawn among the chemists first.

In this issue of Endeavors, we describe a few examples of green chemistry at Carolina by focusing on three researchers: Joe DeSimone, Bill Glaze, and Tom Meyer. Each of these men has made it clear that the work they're pursuing depends on the teamwork of colleagues here and around the world, as well as their students and staff. We regret that we cannot list every collaborator, detail every project, or credit every source. Just as we have simplified the chemistry, we've also simplified the human dimension of an enormously complex undertaking. Green chemistry at Carolina represents an intellectual constellation, and not just a handful of stars.

The Editor