London

孙朝岚

On December 5th， 1952， the GreatSmog of London descended on the Britishcapital due to a combination of air pollutionand weather conditions. To maximizerevenues in the aftermath of the SecondWorld War， the British government hadopted to export the country's betterqualityhard coal and retain the more sulfurous，lowgradecoal for domestic consumption.

Smoke from burning this coal in domesticfires to offset the particularly coldwinter of 1952， combined with pollutantsfrom Londons numerous power stations，factories， and public transport to create athick， noxious blanket of smog over thecity. The thick yellowblacksmog was heldover London for five days due to the arrivalof highpressureweather conditions. Thiscaused an anticyclone that stopped the pollutedair from rising into the atmosphere.

Windless conditions and London's positionin a river valley also meant that thesmog was unable to be blown away. Visibility in the city was reduced to just a fewmeters， bringing public transport to a haltand forcing schools and businesses toclose. Meanwhile， people across the citybreathed in the toxic air and began to succumbto respiratory infections. Estimatesstated that between 4000 and 12，000 Londonersdied as a direct result of breathingthe polluted air.

In response， the government began torethink its policy towards air pollution， andin 1956 introduced the Clean Air Act thatestablished smoke control areas whereonly clean fuels could be burned， precipitatinga shift towards the use of cleanercoals， electricity， and gas as sources ofheat.

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What can we learn from the incident of London？

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