Air Pollution: Price of Doing Business Badly

by Tom Hutchinson

I was raised in northern England where, as a child, I experienced the great pea-soup fogs of its industrial towns. These fogs occurred in the damp autumn and winter days of the 1940s and 1950s and culminated in the killer London Smog of 1953 which, by the time it ended after 5 days, had caused the death of 4000 Londoners. As a result of this disastrous experience but not without much opposition, the Clean Air Act was brought in and dramatically improved local air quality.

One unforeseen consequence was that in the move from individual household coal fires to centralized electricity generation stations, smoke stacks were built. The smoke was carried further away and local problems became more distant regional ones.

By the mid 1960s Sweden and Norway were reporting that rain falling in their mountains had become acidic. Their salmon fisheries were being devastated, while other fish species were disappearing from lakes.

Acid rain became a major issue in Europe and North America and despite denials, delays, and disinformation, the weight of the evidence eventually helped establish treaties to reduce sulphur emissions (e.g. the Canada-US Acid Rain Treaty). Canadian and especially Ontario scientists played a major role. Since then, the amount of sulphur dioxide in the air of Europe and North America has been reduced, and the health of hardwood forests, rivers and lakes has improved. While some areas in Ontario still experience acidic rain episodes, their severity is reduced.

So, one might ask, is the danger of air pollution now abated? I wish the answer was yes, but the evidence suggests that the gains made are now being reversed and that new complications are involved.

For the past two years, southern Ontario emissions of sulphur dioxide have again increased. Coal burning is making its return as the major culprit. While the past two winters have been mild and most fuel heating bills have decreased as a consequence, the exceptionally hot summers combined with earlier springs have escalated use of air conditions for cooling. Sulphur dioxide emissions have increased and for two consecutive summers we have experienced high ozone concentrations.

For those with good memories, the summer of 1988 was one of the hottest on record in Ontario. An accompanying prolonged drought made it difficult for agriculture, while even mature trees died in parts of Central Ontario. The pollution exceeded 80 on several occasions; less than 32 is considered satisfactory or at least acceptable. This index was introduced by the Provincial government more than 20 years ago to help the public monitor the state of their air. In 1988, the worst episodes were in SW Ontario. The major pollutant in 1988 was excess ozone levels rather than sulphur dioxide. Ozone is a pollutant produced as an end product of vehicle emissions. The key chemicals are added to city air during rush hour and are changed by sunlight to give a photochemical smog. Los Angeles is infamous for them. In California the polluted air slowly travels inland as a brown haze, causing enormous economic losses to crops and forests. 1988 was perhaps the year we realized that the Los Angeles situation had come to Ontario.

Peterborough is downwind in summer from Toronto and, in crude terms, the tail pipes of the rush hour traffic in the Greater Toronto area. The hot summers of 1998 and 1999 are causing us increasing problems. Air quality advisories have already been issued 3 times before summer officially commenced on June 21 this year.

At Trent University we are making a major effort to study the magnitude and consequences of these 1990s air pollution problems. Our new James Maclean Oliver Ecological and Environmental Field Centre near Bobcaygeon will be at the center of this effort. Our hopes that this would be a pristine location may turn out to be false but it will allow professors and graduate students to combine forces with government scientists to again establish the facts for the people of Ontario.

Poor air quality is not the price of doing business, rather it is the price of doing business badly. Los Angeles has gone a long way to solve its problems. It will be a challenge to do the same in southern Ontario.

Tom Hutchinson is a professor of Environmental Sciences and Biology at Trent University. He is a member of the Royal Scoiety of Canada and is the Director of the James Maclean Oliver Ecological Research Centre in Bobcagyeon. He can be reached at thutchinson@trentu.ca.


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Last updated April 30, 2001