Thorsheim - Inventing pollution coal, smoke, and culture in Britain since 1800

Inventing Pollution

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Inventing Pollution

Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain since 1800

Peter Thorsheim

With a New Preface by the Author

OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS

Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

2006, 2017 by Ohio University Press

www.ohiou.edu/oupress/

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved

Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper

28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 5 4 3 2 1

Cover art: Frederick H. Evans (British, 18531943), London. Embankment., 1908, Lantern slide 4.2 6.4 cm (1 11/16 2 9/16 in.), The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

ISBN for 2018 reprint: 978-0-8214-2311-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thorsheim, Peter.

Inventing pollution : coal, smoke, and culture in Britain since 1800 / Peter Thorsheim.

p. cm. (Ohio University Press series in ecology and history)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8214-1680-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 0-8214-1681-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. AirPollutionGreat BritainHistory. 2. Smoke preventionGreat BritainHistory. 3. EnvironmentalismGreat BritainHistory. 4. AirPollutionSocial aspectsGreat BritainHistory. 5. CoalCombustionHealth aspectsGreat BritainHistory. I. Title. II. Series.

TD883.7.G7T48 2006

363.73920941dc22

2005029428

For Gina, Erik, and Jacob

Illustrations

Preface

ITS EASY TO assume that environmental problems are entirely recent in origin, but thats far from the case. Although many of the hazards that threaten human health and the natural worldsuch as nuclear wastes, synthetic pesticides, and petrochemicalsare quintessentially modern, other types of pollution have a much longer history. This book explores humanitys long and complicated interaction with coal, the energy source that fueled the Industrial Revolution and the main factor driving climate change. As people in the worlds first industrial nation experienced, came to understand, and tried to solve the myriad problems that accompanied their Faustian bargain with this fossil fuel, they created environmental pressure groups, launched scientific efforts to measure and study emissions, enacted pollution regulations, and sought ways to reduce and mitigate the unintended consequences of technological change. In short, they invented the idea of environmental pollution.

The ancients were well aware of the flammable properties of the dark sedimentary rock known as coal, but they viewed it largely as a curiosity. For centuries, its use remained extremely limited, both quantitatively and geographically. To generate heat, people throughout most of the world found it far easier to use wood as a fuel. Britain, however, was an early exception. Starting in the thirteenth century, population growth and deforestation caused shortages of firewood, and Londoners began to adopt coal as their principal source of heat.emerged in the late eighteenth century, following improvements to the steam engine by the Scottish inventor James Watt. For the first time in history, industry and transportation could be powered not by muscles, wind, and flowing water, but by machines that converted the heat of combustion into mechanical energy.

Coal generated great wealth for industrialists and provided employment for millions of people in mines, factories, and the transport sector. A miracle substance in many respects, it also brought enormous problems, many of which were immediately apparent. At first, the extraction of coal involved nothing more elaborate than breaking it free from surrounding rock in veins that emerged on the earths surface. Over time, miners followed coal deposits deeper and deeper underground, a development aided by the steam engine, which was used to pump groundwater out of mines to prevent them from flooding.

Mining disasters and the risks of black lung haunted miners and their families for generations, but these dangers affected a relatively small percentage of the populace. A far more significant hazard than coal mining, in terms of the numbers it affected, was coal combustion. Wherever people burned coal, they filled the air with both visible and invisible pollutants. Scientific identification of the constituents of coal smoke emerged slowly, and medical understanding of their effects took even longer. Today we know that coal emissions include fine particles of soot and ash, as well as carbon dioxide, sulphur, a host of highly toxic organic compounds, and poisonous metals such as arsenic and mercury. Exposure to coal smoke increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, respiratory diseases, and cancer.

Figure 0.1. Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels, 19002014. Source: T. A. Boden, G. Marland, and R. J. Andres (2017), Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn. doi 10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2017.