The document summarizes the history of air pollution and efforts to manage it. It discusses how air pollution has been a problem since ancient Rome, but early warnings from figures like John Evelyn in the 17th century and Robert Angus Smith in the 19th century were often ignored. Major air pollution events in the 20th century like the Great Smog of London also failed to spur sufficient action. While policies have sought to reduce air pollution, it remains a significant public health issue, with estimates of thousands of premature deaths annually in the UK and millions globally. The document argues we have historically chosen air pollution through political and economic priorities over public health, and must decide if we want to change this pattern.

1. The University of the West of England, Bristol

2. UWE Bristol
Air Pollution. Why we fail to learn the lessons of
history
Routes to Clean Air
Bristol 22nd – 23rd October 2015
Jim Longhurst
University of the West of England, Bristol.
Email: James.Longhurst@uwe.ac.uk

3. Structure of Presentation
• This presentation will explore contemporary issues of air pollution
through the lens provided by history.
• It will present a perspective drawn from an analysis of historical,
and mostly failed, attempts to manage air pollution from classical
times until today.
• It will ask the question why have we not learnt from the lesson
history provides?
• It will do so with the benefit of 2020 hindsight!
• In doing so it will explore a range of relevant issues before returning
to the issue before the conference, why have we failed to manage
air quality?

4. Historical Pollution – Ancient Rome
• Air pollution is not a new problem.
• The Roman poet Horace recorded the blackening of
buildings due to smoke in Rome in classical times.

5. Staffordshire, 1850
HELIX Image Service for Higher Education

6. Sheffield, Late 19th Century
HELIX Image Service for Higher Education

7. Fresh air from the Potteries
http://www.staffspasttrack.org.uk/exhibit/coal/historical%20overview/pottery.htm

8. Manchester Ship Canal in smog.
HELIX Image Service for Higher Education

9. Lessons from History
• Ignored warnings!
• Can we change?

10. http://www.environmental-protection.org.uk/assets/library/documents/Fumifugium_MMXI.pdf
John Evelyn
1661
“That this Glorious and
Antient City, should wrap
her stately head in Clowds
of Smoake and Sulphur, so
full of Stink and Darknesse,
I deplore with just
Indignation.”

11. John Evelyn
• By the middle of the 17th century Evelyn had identified three key
principles of pollution control:
– Smokeless fuels,
– Fuel substitution and
– Separation of polluting source from receptors
• Evelyn’s analysis of air pollution is holistic in its consideration of
sources, impacts and potential solutions.
• Evelyn’s analysis of air quality management was rarely
systematically applied in the next 250 years.
• An early warning missed ?

12. Robert Angus Smith 1817 - 1884
• Scottish chemist who
pioneered the
beginning of
environmental
science and became
known as the ‘father
of acid rain’.http://www.rsc.org/diversity/175-faces/all-
faces/robert-angus-smith

13. RA Smith 1852 -1872
• Set up European monitoring network
• Established the causes of acid precipitation and
urban air pollution.
• Identified the impacts on vegetation, building
and health.
• Recommended pollution control measures.
• Another early warning ignored.

14. Manchester and Salford Smog of 1931.
• In January 1931 Manchester and Salford were engulfed
in a severe smog that persisted for 9 days. In total 592
deaths from respiratory disease occurred during these 9
days.
• A rate of 66 deaths per day. 30 times the rate in
December.
• Another early warning ignored.

15. http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/transcontinental-
railroad/pictures/inventions-transportation/by-henry-thomas-alken

16. A Warning of Things to Come!
www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=3364189
&epmid=1&partner=Google

17. Point sources still an issue – Durban
South Africa

18. Santiago, Chile
Source: La Tercera Newspaper, Chile 15/04/02

19. Beijing playground 2013
Photo
by Anna Scannell

20. Beijing school playground on a “no play outside”
smog day 2013
Photo
by Anna Scannell

21. It is a problem in the UK too
• Air pollution is a serious and long standing problem
here,
now,
in Bristol.

22. Bristol AQMA – Annual nitrogen dioxide
(NO2) objective

23. Air pollution is still a grave problem but you cant always see
it!
• 64% (257) UK Local Authorities declared AQMAs, primarily for NO2 and PM10 from traffic (2014).
• In 2013, the UK exceeded the EU limit value for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) annual mean at 31 of its 43
zones and agglomerations (38 excluding the Margin of Tolerance).
• Current government predictions are that full compliance will not be achieved until 2030.
• 65% of the zones still expected to be exceeding in 2020 (including Bristol), five years after the
permitted time extension period ended.
• Government consultation on draft plans to improve air quality in the UK

24. Number of Local Authorities with
AQMAs

25. Air pollution is a cause of death
• In the UK about 29000 deaths per year are associated with exposure to fine particles, less
than 2.5mm in diameter (PM2.5). This is about 6% of total deaths.
• In cities PM2.5 primarily comes from cars, lorries and buses but they are also produced by
the burning of wood, heating oil or coal for domestic or industrial purposes.
• In Europe, the WHO estimates about 500,000 people die prematurely as a result of air
pollution every year.
• These estimates do not include any contribution from NO2.

26. Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP)
It is estimated that the effects of NO2 on mortality are
equivalent to 23,500 deaths annually in the UK.
Many of the sources of NOx (NO2 and NO) are also
sources of particulate matter (PM).
The combined impact of these two pollutants is equivalent
to more than 52000 deaths per year and represents a
significant public health challenge.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/411756/COMEAP_The_
evidence_for_the_effects_of_nitrogen_dioxide.pdf

27. WHO
• WHO reports that in 2012 around 7 million people died -
one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of air
pollution exposure either indoors or outdoors. Globally,
3.7 million deaths were attributable to ambient air
pollution.
• This finding more than doubles previous estimates and
confirms that air pollution is now the world’s largest
single environmental health risk. Reducing air pollution
could save millions of lives.
• http://www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databas
es/en/

28. WHO
• The new figures suggest that outdoor pollution
from traffic fumes and coal-burning, and indoor
pollution from wood and coal stoves, kills more
people than smoking, road deaths and diabetes
combined.

29. WHO
• Around 80% of the 3.7 million deaths from outdoor
pollution came as a result of stroke and heart disease,
11% from lung diseases and 6% from cancers. The vast
majority were in Asia, with 180,000 in the Americas and
Europe combined according to the WHO.

30. Costs in context
• WHO estimates air pollution costs European economies
US$ 1.6 trillion a year in diseases and deaths.
• UK national debt about US$ 2.55 trillion.
• Greek debt US$ 422 billion.
• WHO study. Cost corresponds to the amount societies are willing to pay to
avoid these deaths and diseases with necessary interventions. In these
calculations, a value is attached to each death and disease, independent of
the age of the person and which varies according to the national economic
context.
• http://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press-releases/2015/air-
pollution-costs-european-economies-us$-1.6-trillion-a-year-in-diseases-and-
deaths,-new-who-study-says

31. WHO
• New and emerging epidemiological studies have also revealed that the main
health effect of air pollution is cardiovascular (heart disease and stroke) and
that ambient air pollution is now a Class 1 carcinogen, equivalent to tobacco
smoke.
• See http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/environment-and-health/air-quality/publications/2013/review-of-
evidence-on-health-aspects-of-air-pollution-revihaap-project-final-technical-report

32. Supreme Court Judgment
• In April 2015 the Supreme Court ruled that the UK is in
breach of the European Air Quality Directive, and insisted
that the government draw up a plan for compliance by the
end of this year.

33. Air Quality Strategy, 2000
• “Clean air is an essential ingredient of a
good quality of life. People have the right
to expect that the air they breathe will not
harm them”

34. A Right to Clean Air?
• European Court of Justice 25/7/08
The Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) confirmed the enforceable “Right to clean air”
for all EU citizens.
Interpretation of Article 7(3) of Council Directive 96/62/EC of 27 September 1996 on ambient air
quality assessment and management (OJ 1996 L 295, p. 55)
Entitlement of a third party whose health is impaired to have an action plan drawn up as
provided for by the Directive, where that third party is entitled under national law to bring legal
proceedings for measures to prevent the value limits of particulate matter being exceeded

35. New Defra Consultation
Draft plans to improve air quality in the UK
Tackling nitrogen dioxide in our towns and cities
UK overview document
Defra, London,
September 2015
• https://consult.defra.gov.uk/airquality/draft-aq-
plans/supporting_documents/Draft%20plans%20to%20improve%20air%20quality%20in%20the%20UK%20%20Overview%20docum
ent%20September%202015%20final%20version%20folder.pdf

36. The Proposal
• Defra proposes that Local Authorities create clean air
zones in at least eight cities, in which diesel engines are
restricted or banned.
• No new money nor new powers are offered.
• Is this adequate?

37. Complexity
• The complexity of air pollution matters cannot be underestimated. The key sources of local air
pollutants are also significant causes of global climate change, however there are additional feedback
loops that can both confound and exacerbate these effects at different scales and in different
circumstances.
• This complexity also has profound complications for management, with examples of policies to reduce
carbon emissions having detrimental effects on local air pollution, e.g. incentivised dieselisation in the
UK. This, together with the transboundary effects of long-range and precursor pollutants, places a
significant burden on governments to reduce the impacts of their activities on public and environmental
health not only domestically but globally.

38. Public and media attention
• Public and media attention has also been captured, in part by the WHO’s figures and the
increasingly common spectacle of visible photochemical smog as depicted in Chai Jing’s
viral ‘Under the Dome’ documentary, which is providing its own solution to the “invisible” air
pollution problem.
• See http://www.theguardian.com/environment/chinas-choice/2015/mar/02/viral-china-
pollution-film-is-brave-personal-and-powerful

39. VW Diesel Scandal
• VW Group’s criminal actions.
• Deliberately setting out to deceive the US EPA and EU and in so
doing harming public health.
• Implications will rumble for a long time and will, I suggest, be a
catalyst for change unless the reformulation of the issue as a
consumer issue drowns out the public health argument.

40. Some Lessons From History
• We choose air pollution.
• Air quality problems have been an inescapable partner of economic
development. Such problems predate the industrial age.
• Air pollution is a consequence of political, economic and societal choices
and the availability of technology. Air pollution has a dynamic relationship
with these factors.
• Our social, political and economic responses to air pollution have often
lagged behind our awareness and understanding of the impact of air
pollution.
• The public’s willingness to accept a particular amount of pollution changes
over time.
• The ability and willingness of our institutions to tackle air pollution varies
with the level of public concern, the economic costs of change, the impacts
of air pollution and the availability of technological solutions.

41. A Choice
• We choose air pollution.
• We can choose to minimise the effects of air
pollution.
• Do we want to change?

42. Professor James Longhurst
University of the West of England,
Bristol,
BS16 1QY
UK
Email James.Longhurst@uwe.ac.uk