BERLIN—Paul J. Crutzen, a Dutch scientist who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry for his work understanding the ozone hole and is credited with coining the term Anthropocene to describe the geological era shaped by mankind, has died. The Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, where Crutzen was the director of atmospheric chemistry from 1980 until his retirement in 2000, confirmed that he died Thursday at the age of 87. “Paul Crutzen was a pioneer in many ways,” Martin Stratmann, the president of the Max Planck Society, said in a statement. “He was the first to show how human activities damage the ozone layer.” Stratmann said that Crutzen’s work helped lay the basis for the worldwide ban on ozone-depleting substances, a rare example of fundamental scientific research leading to a global political decision within just a few years. Crutzen was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1995 together with …