From heartfelt memoirs and eco-cinema to global and interstellar research, UC Irvine Libraries have a wide selection of environmental- and climate-related resources. This Earth Week, we invite you to explore Nobel Prize–winning research, streaming media, and more.

Nobel Prize–Winning Global Environmental Research

UC Irvine professor and climate advocate F. Sherwood Rowland (1927–2012) won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen in 1995 for work demonstrating that chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases, commonly used in refrigerators and aerosol cans, were a threat to the Earth’s protective ozone layer. According to the Nobel Prize press release, “By explaining the chemical mechanisms that affect the thickness of the ozone layer, the three researchers have contributed to our salvation from a global environmental problem that could have catastrophic consequences.”

The F. Sherwood Rowland Papers, housed in the UC Irvine Libraries Special Collections and Archives, contain materials documenting his research and global efforts to educate the public and policymakers about stratospheric ozone depletion, global climate change, and related environmental issues. The collection, which Rowland gifted to UC Irvine Libraries in 2008, contains Rowland’s lifework in atmospheric science and radiochemistry, including speeches, lab notebooks, correspondence, teaching materials, research, National Academy of Science files, and photographs. It also documents the public controversies surrounding the CFC theory of ozone depletion and efforts to negotiate international agreements to ban CFC production, including the Montreal Protocol.

To learn more, see the F. Sherwood Rowland Papers Finding Aid or contact the Libraries Special Collections and Archives.

Related Library Resources

In addition to the F. Sherwood Rowland Papers, UC Irvine Libraries offer access to a wide variety of publications, resources, and media related to sustainability, climate change, conservation, and environmental and earth systems sciences. Unless otherwise noted, a UCInetID login may be required.

UC Irvine Research and Finding Aids

• UC Irvine Department of Earth System Science (ESS) collection on eScholarship: More than 3,700 UC Irvine faculty research publications published between 1966 and 2025. Department research topics include how the atmosphere, land, and oceans interact as a system and how the Earth will change over a human lifetime. (no login required)
• Orange County Environmental Issues, Land Use, and Planning Collection: Correspondence, reports, court documents, minutes, photographs, and newspaper clippings documenting three major environmental and political issues in Orange County, California in the 1960s: agricultural preserves, beach erosion, and redistricting. (no login required)
• Library research guides on earth system science and environmental sciences (no login required)

Streaming Media

• Docuseek documentaries on conservation, the environment, environmental justice, and related topics
• Kanopy Earth Day collection, including eco-cinema, documentaries, and more 

Recent Book Acquisitions

• Climate Change and the Endurance of Democracy by Daniel Lindvall (2025): Explores the challenges climate change poses to the endurance of democracy, situating this theme within the context of the rise in extreme climate events and the decline in global freedom since the early 21st century. 
• Climate Change Effects on Civil Infrastructure: Decision-Making by Mohammed Ettouney (2025): Examines how climate change can directly affect civil infrastructure and, more importantly, how stakeholders can prepare for and counter such changes and approach decision-making. 
• The Conservative Environmentalist: Common Sense Solutions for a Sustainable Future by Benjamin Backer (2024): Provocative vision for solving our climate crisis while overcoming America’s political divide and protecting local communities. 
• Everything That Rises: A Climate Change Memoir by Brianna Craft (2023): Blending the political with the personal, dives into what it means to advocate for the future while ensuring your own voice doesn't get lost in the process.
• How We Sold Our Future: The Failure to Fight Climate Change by Jens Beckert and translated by Ray Cunningham (2025): Argues that any realistic climate policy needs to focus on preparing societies for the consequences of escalating climate change and aim at strengthening social resilience to cope with the increasingly unstable natural world. 
• The Law of Complex Earth and Outer Space Systems: The Cosmolegal Proposal by Elena Cirkovic (2025): Invites readers to reconsider fundamental assumptions about law, nature, and human agency in a time of planetary changes, and offers a nuanced and adaptive approach to law and governance in the face of cosmic-scale challenges.
• Managing the Health Risks of Climate Change edited by Jeffrey Kurebwa and David Makwerere (2025): Provides new evidence on the health risks posed by climate change, offering a comprehensive analysis of how environmental changes are impacting human health.
• Microplastic Pollution: Occurrence, Health Risk, and Challenges edited by Navish Kataria et al. (2025): Reviews various aspects of microplastics, from their sources and manifestation in terrestrial, aquatic, and air environments to their fate in wastewater treatment systems and impact on ecosystems and human health.

Diversity of UC Irvine Libraries’ Collections

UC Irvine Libraries collect materials in all formats to support the university’s research, teaching, and public service mission.

We believe it is crucial that our collections reflect the diversity of our students, faculty, staff, and larger Orange County community. Thus, we are making an effort to collect materials that consider the needs and perspectives of historically underrepresented, marginalized, and oppressed groups. For more information, please refer to our Diversity Statement and Plan.

For additional information about UC Irvine Libraries’ efforts to celebrate diversity in its users, staff, collections, and resources, visit the UC Irvine Libraries Diversity webpage.