Fog (part 2) - February 12, 2012

It was crisp but very still today. A nice day to take a dog to a park. A nice day to walk the girl around the neighborhood a bit, and a nice day to misunderstand the Science Museum schedule and so to end up walking down along the Mississippi with my son for 45 minutes. Bright and clear... all that was missing from this perfect winter day was snow.

I finished The Big Smoke last night. It's essentially a history of English, and especially London, air pollution. Centuries of complaint, and only in the 1950s some real effective action. Well, not strictly true: serious fogs tapered off dramatically beginning around 1900, and were a rarity by the time of the Great Smog of 1952. But was this a result of atmospheric patterns changing, or of some change in smoke emission? Unclear.

What was clear form the narrative was the overwhelming power of inertia, even in the face of disastrous conditions. Most of the 19th century, London toiled under an ever-smokier haze: gardens withered, coughs developed (life expectancy for a city-born English child was in the high 20s in the 1830s). And no-one seemed able to do anything really effective. Part of the problem is, there was no off-the-shelf solution. Where there was, there was action—for example see the Alkili Acts, where there was simple technology which, when everyone was forced to use it, cut down on the release of hydrogen chloride from the alkili industry, around St Helens, Glasgow and Newcastle, by 99%.

Part of the issue with smoke pollution is that while the soot was a visible issue, sulfur dioxide was causing a lot of damage both to people and to the physical plant. And 19th century chemistry just wasn't up to detailed monitoring and analysis needed.

Part of it also was that it wasn't just industry. Everyone heated with coal. So, like those trying to figure out how to deal with the catastrophic effects of internal combustion engines, the solution seems impossible because it's embedded so deeply and granularly in every part of our lives. It will take a new technology, like natural gas replacing coal, to really solve the problem. If such a solution comes. If not, Miami is very wet toast.