Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
.
37
Monopolistic state
control over heavy industries such as coal mines, chemical works, and iron and steel
foundries meant that there was little pressure to introduce abatement technologies or
environmental protection legislation that might impede economic expansion. While
smoke emissions were coming under control in the West, they were rising rapidly
behind both the Iron and Bamboo Curtains. In Nizhni Tagil, an industrial city 700
miles east of Moscow, urbanites regularly experienced
capitalist West
—
resulted in
'
polluted skies as never before
'
because the
smog was so thick. Chinese industrial cities, such as Shenyang and Lanzhou, were
also characterised by high levels of smoke pollution. China, which now has over
120 cities with more than one million inhabitants, currently burns in excess of two
billion tons of coal per annum (and it is likely to remain its dominant fuel for
decades to come). In 1998, of the ten most polluted cities in the world, nine were to
be found in China. Lanzhou
'
night at noon
'
s inhabitants had to breathe air with average levels of
pollution that were more than 100 times the World Health Organisation
'
s (WHO)
guidelines. In 2013, the WHO estimated that over 1.3 million people around the
world were killed by respiratory and other diseases associated with outdoor air
pollution, the great majority in developing countries.
38
China, which manufactures low-priced goods for export to the West, is now the
world
'
'
s biggest producer and consumer of coal (many developed nations have
essentially
'
'
their pollution). Industrialising India (where smoke emis-
sions were strictly regulated under the British Raj), is also among the top ve
nations for coal production, with cities such as Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai all
suffering from severe air pollution. The air quality in many Chinese and Indian
manufacturing centres today is as poor as it was more than a century ago in
Manchester or Pittsburgh (with emissions from car exhausts adding to the problem
—
outsourced
see below). It is worth noting too that while coal now provides less than a third of
the world
s energy, between 1900 and 2000 global production continued to rise
sharply from 780 million tons to 3.5 billion tons per annum.
39
And smoke due to
biomass burning and large-scale forest
'
res as more land is cleared for agriculture
in South Asia, creating the so-called Asian Brown Cloud, is now causing health and
environmental problems across borders.
40
5.4 The Era of Invisible Threats, c.1950: Present
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, smoke and winter
a term
coined in 1905 by Dr. Harold Des Voeux of the London-based Coal Smoke
Abatement Society to describe the fusion of smoke and fog
'
smog
'—
—
were the most obvious
37
McNeill (
2000
).
38
Davis (
2002
), Mosley (
2010
)and World Health Organisation (
2013
).
39
McNeill (
2000
), Anderson (
1995
) and Dorf (
2001
).
40
United Nations Environment Programme (
2002
) and Chakrabarti (
2007
).
