Air - Environmental Transformations - page 44

been directly connected to elevated levels of skin
cancer, terrestrial plant damage and dwindling
levels of oceanic plankton populations.
Given that the observed socio-environmental
effects of leaded petrol and CFCs only became
apparent following Midgley's death in 1944, it
is clearly unfair to apportion blame to the scien-
tist. Notwithstanding this, the story of Midgley
represents a cautionary tale of the, often, un-
intended consequences of scientific innovation
and the care that must be taken to trial and
monitor the impact on new industrial processes
on the Earth's environment. In relation to this
chapter, the story of Thomas Midgley provides a
useful framework within which to position the
discussions that follow. The atmospheric impacts
of Midgley's infamous work can be broken down
into two broad categories: 1) the cumulative forms
of air pollution associated with leaded petrol;
and 2) the systemic pollution associated with
the erosion of the ozone layer. Cumulative forms
of pollution relate to pollution that gradually
accumulates in the environment over long periods
of time, and contributes to various socio-ecological
problems. Systemic forms of pollution, by contrast,
refer to the ways in which certain pollutants
can actually change the ways in which large-
scale ecological systems (such as the ozone layer)
operate. This chapter explores the complex mix
of cumulative and systemic transformations
of the atmosphere that have characterized the
Anthropocene.
Midgley's story is, however, also important
because it raises questions about the role of
science and scientists in the Anthropocene. While
Midgley's science contributed to severe atmos-
pheric problems, the research of other scientists
helped to identify these problems and prompted
action to tackle them. Consequently, the inter-
national regulation of CFCs through the Mon-
treal Protocol and the introduction of unleaded
petrol were inspired by the studies of atmospheric
scientists, and contributed to the gradual clos-
ing of the ozone hole and the phase out of lead
pollution. It is in this context that this chapter

considers the role of science and scientists in
both generating atmospheric problems and in
helping identify and address them (see Whitehead,
2009).
This chapter begins with an assessment of the
atmospheric transformations that are associated
with the Anthropocene. The second section
outlines the nature of atmospheric science, and its
role in mediating social relations with the atmos-
phere. Th e third section develops a geographical
perspective on these issues by considering the
role of scientists in the struggle for clean air in
Louisiana's so-called chemical corridor.

3.2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF AIR
POLLUTION: FROM MAUNA
LOA TO MUMBAI

3.2.1 The Keeling Curve and the
history of CO 2
Charles David Keeling was an American geo-
chemist who was initially at the California Institute
of Technology and the Scripps Institute of
Oceanography. In many ways Keeling's scientific
work represents the most significant contribution
to human understandings of our collective impact
on the global atmosphere. From early in his career
Keeling had taken an interest in the seemingly
innocuous gaseous compound carbon dioxide.
CO 2 is technically a trace gas, which only comprises
approximately 0.039445 per cent (or 394.35 parts
per million by volume) of the Earth's atmosphere
(although this level does vary on a seasonal
basis). Despite the relatively small levels of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, the gas has a pecu-
liarly significant impact on life on Earth. The
nineteenth-century scientists John Tyndall and
Jean Baptiste Fourier had recognized that gases like
carbon dioxide and methane trapped heat in the
planet's atmosphere. It was not, however, until the
meticulous nineteenth-century calculations of the
Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius that scientists
began to realize the full environmental impacts of
atmospheric CO 2 (Pearce, 2006: 33-35). In trying