Air Pollution in History

A lot of people believe the Air Pollution started with the Industrial Revolution, around the XVIII century. However, its history remounts to centuries before the first industries appearance.  

In the 5th BC, the physician Hippocrates had observed the effects of food, occupation and above all, the weather, in a human's health. He wrote a book, "On Airs, Waters and Places", that clearly points out the importance of pure air in people's health. So, we can say since then, people had already started to pollute the air.

History has the Air Pollution's story well documented. In 61 BC, a reference by Seneca says: "I left the heavy air of Rome behind, and here I found the bad smell of smoke from the chimneys (...) and I felt an alteration in my mood". The nomadic tribes used to leave the rest of dead animals and people piled, provoking an unbearable smell. In 1257, The consort Queen of England Eleanor of Provence had to leave the Nottingham Castle, along with several maids-in-waiting, because they were having troubles to breathe, caused by the burnt of coal. In 1558, Queen Elizabeth I of England forbade people to burn coal, since she was allergic to the resultant smoke. Also, in 1661, John Evelyn wrote the book "Fumifugium, or the inconvenience of the Aer and the Smoake of London Dissipated", where we can notice the high level of pollution that the english capital had reached.

Yet it is indisputable that the air pollution had its biggest rise during the Industrial Revolution. Not only London was a target of the problem, but also villages and smaller lands around the court. It happened because the machines required steam to work. To produce this steam, a great amount of coal had to be burnt in very high temperatures, sometimes even other products. The combustion resulted in great dark clouds of smoke, that covered the cities and had a great impact on the air quality. Not only the industries were contributing to this situation. The locomotives and ships also used the same process of burning coal in a high level. It happened mainly in the European countries, the most developed ones, such as England and France. It spread as the industries advanced through out the world.

Only in the XIX century, it was recognized the negatives effects of those mechanisms. That was when the firsts equipment of pollution control were created, such as electric engines, that had thermal sources.

In 1925, most of the problems that we know nowadays were recognized, and solutions started to appear as well. The investigation started in California, with the creation of the Technical Foundation of Air Pollution Meteorology, that studied the effects of air pollution, in chemical aspects, and elaborated solutions for prevention and minimizing of the symptoms. The only thing that was lacking was a proper Law regarding the emission of polluting agents. It only started after 1950, and by the 80's it was already being applied.

Today, we can notice that the air pollution has 3 main causes: sulfur emission, nitrogen oxide emission and pollution from vehicles, that include not only sulfur and nitrogen but several other polluter agents. The fight started centuries ago, and it's still on.

this is thetreehugger signing out for today...lets discuss more in the next blog post :)