Chris
Woodford

Breathless: Notes and References

Last updated: 22 April 2023.

Breathless Book Cover - large

This is a slightly expanded, handily web-linked, and updated version of my notes and references (well over 1300 of them). In the printed book, I opted to use shortened URLs (with tinyurl) and omit full titles for reasons of space and convenience; here, I have more space for the full titles and some extended notes. Even though Breathless was never intended to be a scholarly work, I've been fairly meticulous, and you'll find sources for almost all of my factual information here. If anything is missing, please do get in touch and I'll do my best to clarify.

Ordinary numbered notes refer to the bracketed notes you'll find at the end of most paragraphs in the printed text.

Since the book went to press, I've expanded a few of the notes and added many new ones to detail papers and news reports that have recently come to my attention. The new ones are listed by page number, formatted like this, p.123, and inserted at the appropriate place between the existing, numbered notes.

No matter how hard you try, some mistakes always creep into books. My sincere apologies for any errors that you find and any confusion they cause. I'd be very grateful to hear about them so I can list them here and make corrections in future editions.

An important note about the WHO guidelines

One major development: about six months after the book was published, in September 2021, the World Health Organization dramatically revised its air pollution guidelines for the first time in 16 years, halving the value for particulates (cutting it by 50 percent) and quartering the recommended limit for nitrogen dioxide (cutting it by 75 percent). In other words, the guidelines are much stricter than they used to be. This means quite a few references in the book to places "exceeding the WHO's guidelines" are now out-of-date: since the guideline values are now much lower, the position is effectively much worse than it was before, better reflecting the true health harms that pollution is thought to cause.

For more details, please see WHO, 22 Sep 2021 [New WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines aim to save millions of lives from air pollution] and, for alternative takes, D. Carrington, 22 Sep 2021 [WHO slashes guideline limits on air pollution from fossil fuels] and L. Taylor, BMJ, 23 Sep 2021 [WHO cuts air pollution limits to save millions of lives].

The new guidelines themselves are available here: World Health Organization, 2021. [WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines: Particulate Matter (PM2.5 and PM10), Ozone, Nitrogen dioxide, Sulfur dioxide and Carbon monoxide].

One final note: I've recently uploaded a bonus chapter called Angels with dirty faces: How air pollution blackens our buildings and monuments, which we cut from the book at the last minute to save space.

Contents

Introduction

1. M. Safi, Guardian, 7 Nov 2017 [Delhi doctors declare pollution emergency as smog chokes city]; E. Bannon, Transport and Environment, 9 Aug 2018 [Summer tourists 'forced to smoke' in top European cities].

p.1: Note that off-the-cuff cigarette comparisons ("The pollution is as bad as smoking X cigarettes a day") can be misleading: which pollutants are we talking about... or are we talking about a more generalized kind of risk comparison? That's why I've specified PM2.5s, which are the ones they honed in on in the Transport and Environment article referenced here. According to Professor Richard Muller of Berkeley Earth, average US pollution is equivalent to smoking about 0.4 cigarettes per day, while the worst recorded pollution in Shenyang, China is more like 63 a day. On the day Prof Muller wrote his article, Delhi's pollution was "equivalent to about 25 cigarettes each day".

Professor David Spiegelhalter likes using cigarette comparisons, but in a somewhat different way: not in terms of particulates, but as "an analogy with the overall harm of smoking". That's exactly why cigarette comparisons can be misleading: you need to be clear about what you mean. According to Prof Spiegelhalter's figures, Delhi then works out as 19 cigarettes per day (roughly the same as Prof Muller's number—based on PM2.5s), while London and Paris are one apiece.

To confuse things still further, I think some of these "cigarette comparisons" are more instinctive, based on considerable, direct experience of what smokers' lungs look and feel like, and how they respond to treatments or surgery, compared to the lungs of people who breathe high amounts of air pollution. Dr Arvind Kumar, a leading Indian chest surgeon and air-pollution campaigner, who operates on some 600 lung patients a year, has noted a major shift between the 1980s (when most of the people he saw were older, male smokers) and today (when about half are now non-smokers, crippled by air pollution). See A. Kumar et al, World Economic Forum, 5 Oct 2020 [An Indian chest surgeon explains why he rarely sees healthy lungs anymore]. In this article, Dr Kumar quotes Delhi's air as being like "2,372 cigarettes each year" (about 6.5 a day), which is somewhat less than David Spiegelhalter's 19 a day and my 50 a day (which is based on Michael Safi's article, referenced above, that referred to the extreme pollution in Winter 2017).

2. M. Tainio et al, Prev Med, Jun 2016 [Can air pollution negate the health benefits of cycling and walking?]; N. Van Mead, Guardian, 13 Feb 2017 [Tipping point: revealing the cities where exercise does more harm than good].

p.2: Jackson Pollock's drip-and-splash action paintings might look wildly random, but there's obviously much more to it than that. Professor Martin Kemp, the Oxford art historian whose studies have helped to dissolve artificial, modern boundaries between art and science, notes that: "Jackson Pollock's drip paintings ... represent an extreme form of process in terms of what viscous fluids do under the action of certain kinds of force and constraint"— which sounds to me like a description of what coughing or sneezing achieves. Like a number of other bodily fluids, phlegm (mucus), for example, is thixatropic (it becomes more runny — technically, it loses some of its viscosity — when your coughing or sneezing applies pressure, and that helps to clear it from your lungs or airways). Intriguingly, Kemp (nodding to biographer Bryan Robertson) notes that Pollock was familiar with the work of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, a 19th-century Scottish scientist who applied mathematical insights to all sorts of visual patterns found in the natural world. It's fascinating to speculate on a possible influence between organic patterns and the things Pollock painted but (as Kemp carefully notes) it really is speculation. See Doing What Comes Naturally: Morphogenesis and the Limits of the Genetic Code by Martin Kemp, Art Journal, Vol. 55, No. 1, Spring 1996, pp. 27–32.

3. There are all sorts of different estimates for the total death toll from air pollution, generally in the range 7–10.5 million per year. I take my often quoted "7–10" from Lelieveld et al's Global Exposure Mortality Model (GEMM), which gives a figure of 7.11–10.41. But it's obvious from all these sources that the real figure could be much higher. World Health Organization (WHO), 2 May 2018 [9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air, but more countries are taking action]; WHO 24 May 2018 [The top 10 causes of death]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 20 Oct 2017 [Global pollution kills 9m a year and threatens 'survival of human societies']; D. Carrington, Guardian, 20 Nov 2018 [Air pollution cuts two years off global average lifespan, says study]; J. Lelieveld et al, Cardiovasc Res, 3 Mar 2020 [Loss of life expectancy from air pollution compared to other risk factors: a worldwide perspective]; P. Walker et al, Imperial College, London, 26 Mar 2020 [The Global Impact of COVID-19 and Strategies for Mitigation and Suppression [PDF]]; D. Spiegelhalter, Medium, 21 Mar 2020 [How much 'normal' risk does Covid represent?]; O. Milman, Guardian, 9 Feb 2021 ['Invisible killer': fossil fuels caused 8.7m deaths globally in 2018, research finds]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 1 Sep 2021 [Air pollution is slashing years off the lives of billions, report finds].

p.3: Virtually every home in the UK is affected by dirty air, according to D. Carrington, Guardian, 28 Apr 2022 [Dirty air affects 97% of UK homes, data shows].

4. M. Safi, Guardian, 5 December 2017 [Sri Lankan bowler vomits in Delhi cricket match due to polluted air]; Y. Chen et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci, 6 Aug 2013 [Evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China's Huai River policy [PDF]]; S. Neuman, NPR, 29 Aug 2013 [Have Your Picture Taken With Hong Kong's (Smog-Free) Skyline]; AFP, Phys.org, 18 Mar 2015 [Eiffel tower shrouded in smog as Paris pollution spikes]; A. Vaughan, Guardian, 8 Jan 2018 [London takes just one week to breach annual air pollution limits]; WHO, 2016 [Ambient air pollution: A global assessment of exposure and burden of disease].

5. Univ of York, 2 Feb 2012 [Food crops damaged by pollution crossing continents].

6. R. Pawankar et al, World Allergy Organization (WAO), 2013 [WAO White Book on Allergy [PDF]]; Wikipedia, Air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption [Air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption].

7. C. Rosen, Bus Hist Rev, Autumn 1995 [Businessmen against Pollution in Late Nineteenth Century Chicago]; F. Shapiro, The Yale Book of Quotations, Yale Univ Press, 2006; Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) News Release, 9 Sep 2016 [Joint World Bank-IHME report details cost of air pollution]; WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2015 [Economic cost of the health impact of air pollution in Europe [PDF]]; World Bank Databank, Oct 2019.

8. H. Chen, Lancet, 18 Feb 2017 [Living near major roads and the incidence of dementia, Parkinson's disease, and multiple sclerosis: a population-based cohort study].

9. US EPA, 2019 [Progress Cleaning the Air and Improving People's Health].

10. K. Pohlman. Ecowatch, 12 Jul 2016 [800,000 People Attempt to Plant 50 Million Trees to Break Guinness World Record]; Friends of the Earth (FoE) UK [Clean Air campaign Air monitoring kit result]; Clean Air Day UK [Clean Air Day]; A. Kuhn, NPR, 4 Mar 2015 [The Anti-Pollution Documentary That's Taken China By Storm ]; M. Greenstone et al, North India AQLI, Univ of Chicago, 2018 [North India Fact Sheet].

11. WHO, 8 May 2018 [Household air pollution and health]; American Cancer Society (ACS), 16 Nov 2018 [Risk Factors for Malignant Mesothelioma].

Chapter 1: What's your poison?

1. S. Cotton, Conversation, 12 Apr 2016 [Handle with care—the world's five deadliest poisons]; WHO, 2 May 2018 [9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air, but more countries are taking action].

2. WHO, 2 May 2018 [9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air, but more countries are taking action].

p.12: Historians dispute whether protests over the calendar change were real or apocryphal, but they're widely documented. For example, see "Time" by Neil Rhodes in The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England by Andrew Hadfield et al (eds) Routledge, London, 2016. p.283.

3. D. Fullerton et al, Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg, Sep 2008 [Indoor air pollution from biomass fuel smoke is a major health concern in the developing world]. Some more recent research links air pollution to macular degeneration. See D. Carrington, Guardian, 26 Jan 2021 [Air pollution linked to higher risk of irreversible sight loss], which is based on C. Lane, University College London, 26 Jan 2021 [Air pollution linked to higher risk of sight loss from AMD].

4. One authoritative definition: UK National Health Service (NHS), 31 May 2018 [Poisoning]; World Bank, 8 Sep 2016 [Air Pollution Deaths Cost Global Economy US$225 Billion]; WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.87.

p.14: In the UK, a February 2021 report by the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has highlighted how air pollution problems "disproportionately affect those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds".

p.14: For a graphic (literally) illustration of how air pollution affects richer and poorer people to different extents, even when they live in the same city, check out an excellent interactive article comparing two Indian children: Who Gets to Breathe Clean Air in New Delhi? by Jin Wu et al, New York Times, 17 December 2020.

5. K. Kuzek, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 12 Jan 2007 [Deep-sea Tubeworms Get Versatile 'Inside' Help]; J. Fox-Skelly, BBC Earth, 26 Jan 2017 [There is One Animal That Seems to Survive Without Oxygen]. A great account of tubeworms and hydrothermal vents: "Chapter 8: Life on a Volcano" of Mapping the Deep: The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science by Robert Kunzig. London: Sort of Books, 2000. pp.131–163.

6. NASA, 16 Mar 2017 [Earth Fact Sheet].

7. NASA, 27 Sep 2018 [Mars Fact Sheet]; NASA, 18 Jul 2018 [Jupiter Fact Sheet].

8. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.1.

9. British Petroleum (BP), 2018, p.9 [Statistical Review of World Energy]; US Energy Information Administration (EIA), 25 Oct 2019 [What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?]; J. Desjardins, World Economic Forum (WEF), 6 Sep 2017 [These 3 maps show what's powering the world]; K. Arney, Chemistry World, 23 Nov 2018 [Propanethial-S-oxide: how chopping onions makes you cry]; W. Calkins, Fuel, April 1994 [The chemical forms of sulfur in coal: a review].

10. V. Roshchina, Ozone and Plant Cell, Springer, 2013, p.9; "Epidemiology of Chemical Warfare Agents" by Linda A. McCauley in Handbook of Toxicology of Chemical Warfare Agents by Ramesh C. Gupta (ed). London: Academic Press/Elsevier, 2009, p.33. Ozone, Pubchem [Ozone]; ESVOC, Sep 2017 [VOCs and Indoor Air Quality]; US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Code of Federal Regulations Title 21, 1 Apr 2019 [CFR - Code of Federal Regulations Title 21: Sec. 801.415 Maximum acceptable level of ozone.].

11. M. Dennekamp et al , Occup Environ Med, Aug 2001 [Ultrafine particles and nitrogen oxides generated by gas and electric cooking].

12. "7.5 Positive Features of Carbon Monoxide" in J. Emsley, Molecules of Murder: Criminal Molecules and Classic Cases. Royal Society of Chemistry, 2015.

13. L. Naranjo, NASA, 20 Nov 2011 [Volatile trees]; ESVOC, Sep 2017 [VOCs and Indoor Air Quality].

p.20: In Europe, VOC emissions have to be described under The Paints Directive (2004/42/EC).

p.20: F. Harvey, Guardian, 17 August 2022 Major cities blighted by nitrogen dioxide pollution, research finds.

14. C. Pope and D. Dockery, J Air Waste Manag Assoc, Vol 56, 2006 [Health effects of fine particulate air pollution: lines that connect]; M. Loxham et al, BMJ 27 Nov 2019 [The health effects of fine particulate air pollution]; C. Womack, Univ of Colorado Boulder, 11 Feb 2017 [So... What Exactly Are We Looking For?]; State Of Global Air 2018. Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.1 [State of Global Air 2018 [PDF]].

p.21: This book doesn't mention really small (PM1 and PM0.1) particulates very much. Relatively little research has been done into their effects (compared to how much has been done on "coarse" PM10 and "fine" PM2.5), and air-quality guidelines don't yet mention or regulate them. According to a recent report by the UK's Air Quality Expert Group into ultrafine particulates (UFP, which are 100 nanometers in diameter—so PM0.1 and smaller):

"UFP are believed to contribute to the toxicity of airborne particulate matter but the magnitude of their contribution is currently unclear. Whilst it is possible that their small size and large surface area may make them particularly harmful to health, the available evidence is limited and as yet no air quality guideline has been set for their concentration."

See UKAQEG, 2018 [Ultrafine Particles (UFP) in the UK [PDF]]. Other recent reviews include C. Terzano et al, Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci, Oct 2010 [Air pollution ultrafine particles: toxicity beyond the lung] and P. Pedata et al, G Ital Med Lav Ergon, Jan–Mar 2010 [Ultrafine particles and effects on the body: review of the literature].

For a wonderful visual appreciation of how UFPs might be affecting us, check out Sotirios Papathanasiou's artwork on Penetration of Particles into the Human Body. I'm not sure what sources Sotirios used to draw this, but it's pretty frightening.

15. US EPA [Health Effects Notebook for Hazardous Air Pollutants]; F. Harvey, Guardian, 13 Jun 2019 [Dealing with ammonia is an urgent health problem—yet levels are still rising]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 15 Nov 2021 [Ammonia from farms behind 60% of UK particulate air pollution—study]; D. Giannadaki et al, Sci Total Environ, 1 May 2018 [Estimating health and economic benefits of reductions in air pollution from agriculture]; US CDC, 19 Jul 2018 [What Are the Risk Factors for Lung Cancer?].

16. Trees and VOCs, Univ Boulder, Colorado [Trees and VOCs].

17. L. Wallace, Clin Exp Allergy, Vol 25, 1995 [Human Exposure to Environmental Pollutants: A Decade of Experience].

18. M. Douglas, Purity and Danger, Routledge 1966. (Interestingly, Rollo Russell used a very similar definition, "matter in the wrong place", almost a century earlier in his 1880 pamphlet London Fogs.) WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.49; C. Pope and D. Dockery, J Air Waste Manag Assoc, Vol 56, 2006 [Health effects of fine particulate air pollution: lines that connect]

19. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.4, p.332; WHO, 2 May 2018 [9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air, but more countries are taking action]; F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk]. To give an idea how the WHO guidelines provide a useful target to aim for, see AFP, 20 Jan 2021 [Limiting air pollution 'could prevent 50,000 deaths in Europe'].

20. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006.

21. J. Su, Light Sci Appl. Vol 7/3, 2018 [Portable and sensitive air pollution monitoring]; WHO Ambient Air Pollution Database 2016 (retrieved Sep 2019) [WHO Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database (update 2016)]; B. Ferry et al, Air pollution and Lichens, Athlone Press, 1973, p.110; Univ of Antwerp, 2019 [What is strawbAIRies?]; A. Walston, Moms Clean Air Force, 4 May 2011 [Monitoring air quality with lichen as a bioindicator]; K. Klein and L. Tsutsui, Valley Public Radio, 23 January 2018 [What's In Your Air? New low-cost devices monitor valley air pollution]; M. Natali, Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, Dec 2016 [Assessment of trace metal air pollution in Paris using slurry-TXRF analysis on cemetery mosses]; American Chemical Society, 17 October 2018 [Moss rapidly detects, tracks air pollutants in real time]; R. Day and J. Ortmann, Popular Science, Oct 1970, p.97 [Build your own air pollution tester]; Defra, 2008 [Diffusion Tubes for Ambient NO2 Monitoring: Practical Guidance for Laboratories and Users [PDF]]; S. Larssen and L. Hagen, European Topic Centre on Air Quality, Nov 1996 [Air Pollution Monitoring in Europe: Problems and Trends].

22. M. Rigby et al, Atmos Chem Phys Vol 13, 2013 [Re-evaluation of the lifetimes of the major CFCs and CH3CCl3 using atmospheric trends]; US EPA Climate Change Indicators [Climate Change Indicators: Greenhouse Gases]; R. Baum, American Chemical Society, 2017 [Chlorofluorocarbons and Ozone Depletion]; Pubchem [Sulphur hexafluoride].

23. Pollution Probe, Feb 2003 [Sulphur Dioxide and Toxic Metal Emissions from Smelters in Ontario].

24. S. Kim et al, J Toxicol Sci, Vol 40/5, 2015 [Characterization of air freshener emission: the potential health effects].

Chapter 2: Around the world

p.39: For an update on some of the great progress that's now being made in Mongolia, check out Improving air quality in Ulaanbaatar, published by the Asian Development Bank in 2021.

1. J. Hincks, TIME, 23 Mar 2018 [Life in the Most Polluted Capital in the World]; E. Kwong, NPR, 30 Jul 2019 [Mongolia's Capital Banned Coal To Fix Its Pollution Problem. Will It Work?]; S. Guttikunda, Air Qual Atmos Hlth, Sep 2013 [Particulate pollution in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia]; R. Allen et al, Air Qual Atmos Hlth, Mar 2013 [An assessment of air pollution and its attributable mortality in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia]; D. Enkhmaa et al, BMC Pregnancy Childb, 23 Apr 2014 [Seasonal ambient air pollution correlates strongly with spontaneous abortion in Mongolia].

2. M. Kekana, Mail and Guardian, 30 Oct 2018 [Mpumalanga tops world nitrogen dioxide air pollution charts]; O. Balch, Guardian, 6 Jul 2015 [Radioactive City: how Johannesburg's townships are paying for its mining past]; R. Miles, Solenco, 4 Jan 2017 [Veld fires ruin air quality]; Business Tech, 19 Oct 2018 [Worries over levels of air pollution in Cape Town as traffic increases]; J. Stone, 2OceansVibe News, 17 Jan 2013 [Johannesburg Is The 7th Most Polluted City In The World]; K. Altieri et al, London School of Economics (LSE), 22 Nov 2016 [The cost of air pollution in South Africa]; UNEP, May 2006 [African Regional Implementation Review for the 14th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-14): Report on Atmosphere and Air Pollution. New York: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)]; Government expenditure on education, World Bank, 2019 [World Bank Databank]; NASA, 2018 [NASA Global NASA OMI Catalogue]; S. Jain et al, Energy Procedia, Vol 143, 2017 [The rise of Renewable Energy implementation in South Africa].

3. M. Asgari. BBC News, 7 Jan 2013 [Iran pollution worsens as thousands die]; Phys.Org, 5 Feb 2018 [Air pollution closes all schools in Tehran]; Financial Tribune, 5 Nov 2017 [Measures to Tackle Tehran Air Pollution]; A. Dehghan et al, BMC Pulm Med, Vol 18, 2018 [The relation between air pollution and respiratory deaths in Tehran, Iran- using generalized additive models].

4. R. Boland, Trip Savvy, 22 May 2017 [Hong Kong Pollution: Coming Clean About Hong Kong's Smog Problem]; B. Haas, Guardian, 16 Feb 2017 [Where the wind blows: how China's dirty air becomes Hong Kong's problem]; You can see the selfie-backdrop of Hong Kong in the photo at the top of S. Neuman, NPR, 29 Aug 2013 [Have Your Picture Taken With Hong Kong's (Smog-Free) Skyline].

5. Living Streets, 2016 [Walk to school rates decline to the lowest level ever]; Guardian, 4 Apr 2017 [Check whether your child's school is exposed to illegal levels of air pollution]; M. Taylor, Guardian, 26 Feb 2018 [Most UK parents back air pollution exclusion zones around schools]; F. Harvey and J. Otte, Guardian, 25 Mar 2019 [Ban cars outside UK schools to tackle air pollution, teachers say]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 6 Jan 2017 [London breaches annual air pollution limit for 2017 in just five days]; A. Vaughan, Guardian, 8 Jan 2018 [London takes just one week to breach annual air pollution limits]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 3 Oct 2020 ['Dramatic' plunge in London air pollution since 2016, report finds]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 17 Jun 2020 [Quarter of UK pupils attend schools where air pollution is over WHO limit]; S.Laville, Guardian, 17 Jun 2020 [Medical leaders urge Boris Johnson to bring air pollution below WHO limit].

6. M. Safi, Guardian, 6 Nov 2016 [Indian government declares Delhi air pollution an emergency]; M. Safi, Guardian, 3 December 2017 [Pollution stops play at Delhi Test match as bowlers struggle to breathe]; M. Safi, 7 Nov 2017 [Delhi doctors declare pollution emergency as smog chokes city]; New Indian Express, 3 Nov 2016 [Dense fog causes 20-car pile-up at Yamuna Expressway, several injured]; Guardian, 4 Nov 2019 [Delhi restricts cars in attempt to lessen pollution]; BBC News, 1 Nov 2019 [Millions of masks distributed to students in 'gas chamber' Delhi]; Greenpeace, 5 March 2019 [Latest air pollution data ranks world's cities worst to best].

7. G. Guilford, Quartz, 3 Jan 2014 [A big reason Beijing is polluted: The average car goes 7.5 miles per hour]; B. Jiang et al, Lancet, 14 Oct 2017 [Transport and public health in China: the road to a healthy future]; O. Guonov. New York Times, 11 November 2015 [A City Choking on Cars Hopes Commuters Will Return to Two Wheels]; China Daily/Xinhua, 12 Jul 2017 [China has 205 million cars]; E. Pfeiffer, Yahoo News, 31 Jan 2013 [Cans of 'fresh air' for sale in China]; J. Garnaut, Brisbane Times, 29 Jan 2013 [Canned air for sale in China, as blanket of smog returns]; S. Neuman, NPR, 10 Apr 2014 [What's A Breath Of Fresh Air Worth? In China, About $860]; AirVisual, 2018 [AirVisual 2018 list of the World's Most Polluted Cities]; G. Fuller, Guardian, 24 May 2018 [Pollutionwatch: Air contamination drops by 30% in China].

8. American Lung Association (ALA), 2019 [State of the Air Report]; R. Cisneros et al, J Environ Public Health, 2017 [Understanding Public Views about Air Quality and Air Pollution Sources in the San Joaquin Valley, California].

9. Guardian, 18 March 2015 [Eiffel Tower shrouded in smog as Paris pollution spikes]; L. Malykhina, France24, 20 Mar 2015 [Paris briefly tops world charts for air pollution ]; The Local, 6 Dec 2016 [Paris makes public transport free to battle pollution spike]; K. Willsher, Guardian, 3 Nov 2015 [Paris to stop traffic when air pollution spikes]; The Local, 16 Feb 2017 [Air pollution: France gets slapped with 'final warning' from EU].

10. D. Grosjean et al, Atmos Environ, Vol 24/1, 1990 [Urban air pollution in Brazil: Acetaldehyde and other carbonyls]; SugarCane.org, 2018 [Brazilian Transportation Fleet]; National Cancer Institute, 10 Jun 2011 [Formaldehyde and Cancer Risk]; S. Messenger, Treehugger, 24 Sep 2013 [Air pollution in São Paulo kills more people than car accidents, breast cancer, and AIDS combined].

11. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.38, 222, 271; S. Emmanuel, Respirology, Vol 5, 2000 [Impact to lung health of haze from forest fires: the Singapore experience]; WHO, 2016 (retrieved Sep 2019) [Ambient Air Pollution Database]; AP, Guardian, 21 Jun 2013 [Singapore air pollution hits record high].

12. J. McConnell, Conversation, 28 Jul 2014 [Lead pollution beat Amundsen and Scott to the South Pole by 20 years]; D. Zabarenko. Reuters, 10 May 2008 [Pesticide DDT shows up in Antarctic penguins].

13. US EIA, 25 March 2019 [Power sector pushed domestic U.S. natural gas consumption to new record in 2018];WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.396.

14. WHO, 2019 [Air Pollution].

15. WHO, 2 May 2018 [9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air, but more countries are taking action]; UNEP, May 2006 [African Regional Implementation Review for the 14th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-14): Report on Atmosphere and Air Pollution]; SO2 GDP and emissions data from Wikipedia [List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions and List of countries by GDP (nominal)]; WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.35; J. Vidal, Guardian, 20 Oct 2016 [Air pollution more deadly in Africa than malnutrition or dirty water, study warns].

p.22: As Gary Fuller notes, agriculture's contribution to air pollution is widely underestimated. G. Fuller, Guardian, 15 Jan 2021 [Pollutionwatch: major sources of air pollution often overlooked].

16. World Bank Databank, 2017 [PM2.5 air pollution, population exposed to levels exceeding WHO guideline value (% of total), based on Brauer, M. et al. 2017, for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017.

17. WHO, 2013 [Health effects of particulate matter: Policy implications for countries in eastern Europe, Caucasus and central Asia [PDF]]; F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk]; World Nuclear Association, Nov 2018 [Nuclear Power in France].

p.50: For the UK, the generally accepted figure is 30,000–40,000 deaths a year (it does vary from year to year); for Ireland, it's about 1500. See J. Wise, BMJ, 23 Aug 2018 [Air pollution may claim 36,000 lives a year in UK]; W. Richard, King's College London, 28 Aug 2018 [UK air pollution could cause 36,000 deaths a year]; C. Pope, Irish Times, 6 Nov 2017 [Air pollution 'directly linked to 1,500 premature deaths a year'].

The often-repeated "40,000 a year" figure for the UK comes from a 2016 report by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP): "Each year in the UK, around 40,000 deaths are attributable to exposure to outdoor air pollution which plays a role in many of the major health challenges of our day". The calculations behind this are quite complex, however, and some people strongly disagree with expressing the risk in this way—notably the late Dr Tony Frew, whose quite subtle explanation was itself often misreported to suggest that air pollution was not worth worrying about at all. There's a very good explanation of the "40,000 controversy" by Professor David Spiegelhalter and, if you read this, and listen to Tony Frew's interview, what becomes obvious is that this is a problem of communicating a general public health risk in terms that make sense to individuals. An excellent Greenpeace Unearthed piece by Emma Howard explains best of all.

18. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.31, 221; Health Effects Institute, p.11 [State Of Global Air 2018]; H. Ritchie, Our World in Data, 20 June 2017 [What the history of London's air pollution can tell us about the future of today's growing megacities]; India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative Air Pollution Collaborators, Lancet Planet Health, Jan 2019 [The impact of air pollution on deaths, disease burden, and life expectancy across the states of India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017]; C. Zhou et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health, Aug 2018 [Examining the Impacts of Urban Form on Air Pollution in Developing Countries: A Case Study of China's Megacities]; M. Greenstone et al, Univ of Chicago, 2018 [Air Quality Life Index®: North India Fact Sheet].

19. HEI, p.3 [State Of Global Air 2018]; WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.31, 32, 40, 45; H. Ritchie and M. Roser, Our World in Data, Apr/Oct 2017 [Air Pollution]; Ipsos Global Advisor, May 2019 [Ipsos Update]; H. Gilmore, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 Jun 2014 [Wood fire heaters: the hidden killer]; P. Hannam, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 May 2017 ['Mindblowing': NSW EPA probes coal-fired power plants over pollution claims]; Environmental Justice, 15 Aug 2017 [Hunter coal-fired power stations licensed to emit 666 times more mercury than US power stations (Newcastle Herald)]; R. Clun, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 Nov 2019 ['Australians don't want to die from fires': rising risk of poor health due to climate change]; S. Sengupta et al, New York Times, 15 Aug 2019 [How One Billionaire Could Keep Three Countries Hooked on Coal for Decades]; BBC News, 13 Jun 2019 [Adani mine: Australia approves controversial coal project]; Canberra.com, 29 Mar 2017 [Canberra ranked as third cleanest capital city in the world]; BBC News, 6 Jan 2020 [Australia bushfires: Canberra engulfed in smoke]; J. Walls, New Zealand Herald, 26 Feb 2020 [Government moves to ban old-style wood and coal-fueled burners to improve air quality].

20. US EPA, 2019 [Clean Air Act Overview: Progress Cleaning the Air and Improving People's Health].

21. N. Popovich, New York Times, 19 Jun 2019 [America's Skies Have Gotten Clearer, but Millions Still Breathe Unhealthy Air]; J. West and B. Turpin, Conversation, 2 May 2019 [As air pollution increases in some US cities, the Trump administration is weakening clean air regulations]; M. Solly, The Smithsonian, 13 Mar 2019 [White Americans Produce More Air Pollution Than They Consume]; C. Tessum et al, PNAS, 26 Mar 26 2019 [Inequity in consumption of goods and services adds to racial–ethnic disparities in air pollution exposure]; P. McKenna, Inside Climate News, 2 Mar 2018 [EPA Finds Black Americans Face More Health-Threatening Air Pollution]; C. Katz, Sci Am, 1 Nov 2012 [People in Poor Neighborhoods Breathe More Hazardous Particles]; World Bank/Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), 2016, p.24 [The Cost of Air Pollution : Strengthening the Economic Case for Action]; J. Davidson, Ecowatch, 20 Jun 2019 [U.S. Air Quality Is Headed the Wrong Way]; C. Davenport, New York Times, 10 Jun 2021 [E.P.A. to Review Rules on Soot Linked to Deaths, Which Trump Declined to Tighten].

p.53: It's not just in the United States that air pollution has "racist tendencies". See for example D. Gayle, Guardian, 4 October 2022. [People of colour far likelier to live in England’s very high air pollution areas].

22. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.31, 53; BBC News, 15 May 2019 [Mexico City pollution: Residents urged to stay indoor]; IHME, 9 Sep 2016 [Joint World Bank-IHME report details cost of air pollution].

23. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.160; J. Worland, TIME, 9 Sep 2016 [Air Pollution Costs Global Economy Trillions Annually, World Bank Says]; IHME, 9 Sep 2016 [Joint World Bank-IHME report details cost of air pollution]; World Bank/Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), 2016, p.24 [The Cost of Air Pollution Strengthening the Economic Case for Action];

24. UK House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee, Sixth Report of Session 2014—15 [Air Quality Inquiry]; Univ of Oxford, 6 June 2018 [Pollution from cars and vans costs £6billion per year in health damages]; UK National Audit Office (NAO), Environmental Audit Committee, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Health Committee and Transport Committee, 16 Nov 2017 [Air quality: Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, 16 November 2017.]; M. Holder, Air Quality News, 28 Apr 2015 [Air pollution 'costs UK economy £54 billion a year]; My large hospital cost is based on Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham [University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust Annual Report and Accounts 2017–18]; Y. Wei, BMJ, 27 Nov 2019 [Short term exposure to fine particulate matter and hospital admission risks and costs in the Medicare population: time stratified, case crossover study].

25. WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2015 [Economic cost of the health impact of air pollution in Europe]; Education and Military Expenditure data from World Bank Databank [Government expenditure on education, total (% of GDP) and Military expenditure (% of GDP)] ; World Bank/IHME, 2016 [The Cost of Air Pollution Strengthening the Economic Case for Action].

26. World Bank/IHME, 2016, p.6 [The Cost of Air Pollution Strengthening the Economic Case for Action].

Chapter 3: Caesar's dying breath

Two wonderful references I've drawn on in multiple places in the early part of this chapter are S. Mosley, "Chapter 5: Environmental History Of Air Pollution And Protection", In The Basic Environmental History by M. Agnoletti, S. Serneri (eds). Springer, 2014; and P. Brimblecombe, The Big Smoke: A History of Air Pollution in London Since Medieval Times. Methuen, 1987. Also well worth a look is S. Mosley, The Chimney of the World: A History of Smoke Pollution in Victorian and Edwardian Manchester , Routledge, 2008. For a comprehensive recent review, try D. Fowler et al, Phil Trans R Soc A, 28 Sep 2020 [A chronology of global air quality].

1. There are many worked examples of the calculation online, including this one by Tong Shiu-sing & Hui Pak-ming for the Education Bureau of Hong Kong [The Last Breath of Caesar]. See also S. Kean, Caesar's Last Breath: The Epic Story of The Air Around Us, Doubleday, 2017.

2. P. Brimblecombe, Air Composition and Chemistry. Cambridge, 1986, p.5.

3. D. Chow, Space.com, 10 Nov 2011. [Primordial Gas Clouds Reveal Glimpse of Big Bang's Aftermath].

4. E. Wayman, Smithsonian, 4 Apr 4, 2012 [The Earliest Example of Hominid Fire].

5. F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk]; L. Capasso. Med Secoli, Vol 7/3, 1995 [Archaelogical documentation of the atmospheric pollution in antiquity]; S. Mosley, 2014; P. Brimblecombe, 1987.

6. J. Longman et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci, 19 Jun 2018 [Exceptionally high levels of lead pollution in the Balkans from the Early Bronze Age to the Industrial Revolution]; S. Mosley, 2014 (Ibid.); J. Grout, retrieved 2019 [Lead Poisoning and Rome]; K. Killgrove, Powered by Osteons, 20 Jan 2012 [Lead Poisoning In Rome—The Skeletal Evidence]; Mosley, 2014.

7. S. Mosley, 2014; P. Brimblecombe, 1987, p.7, 35; Hippocrates, [On Airs, Waters, and Places]; D. Gourevitch, Med Secoli, Vol 7/3, 1995 [Hippocratic medicine and the treatise Airs, waters and places. A short history of the beginnings and influence of a scientific error]; J. Jouanna. Brill, 2012, p121 [Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen: Selected Papers]; R. Parker, Miasma, Oxford, 1996; C. Hannaway, "Environment and Miasmata" in W. Bynum and R. Porter (eds), Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, Taylor & Francis, 1993. p.295.

8. S. Mosley, 2014; J. Lennon in Rome, Pollution and Propriety: Dirt, Disease and Hygiene in the Eternal City from Antiquity to Modernity by M. Bradley and K. Stow (eds), Cambridge Univ Press, 2012, p.43; A. Wacke, Roman Legal Tradition, 2002, p.1—24 [Protection of the environment in Roman law?].

9. A. Ascenzi et al, in: K. Spindler et al (eds) Human Mummies. Springer, 1996 [The roman mummy of Grottarossa]; Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, R. Campbell (trans.), Penguin, 1985, p.185; J. Boyle (trans.), The Institutes of Justinian, Lawbook Exchange, 2002.

10. S. Connor, Independent, retrieved 2019 [Ice pack reveals Romans' air pollution]; J. McConnell et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci, 29 May 2018 [Lead pollution recorded in Greenland ice indicates European emissions tracked plagues, wars, and imperial expansion during antiquity.]; L. Capasso, Lancet, 18 Nov 2000 [Indoor pollution and respiratory diseases in Ancient Rome]; F. De Vleeschouwer et al, Sci Total Environ, 15 May 2007 [Atmospheric lead and heavy metal pollution records from a Belgian peat bog spanning the last two millenia: human impact on a regional to global scale.].

11. C. Loveluck et al, Antiquity, 31 Mar 2020 [Alpine ice and the annual political economy of the Angevin Empire, from the death of Thomas Becket to Magna Carta, c. AD 1170–1216].

12. J. Fearnley-Whittingstall, The Garden, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002, p.15.

13. "Scoland - Seacoal Lane" in A Dictionary of London, H. Jenkins, 1918; J. Morrison, Smithsonian, 11 Jan 2016 [Air Pollution Goes Back Way Further Than You Think]; M. Allaby, Fog Smoke and Poisoned Rain, Facts on File, 2003, p.64-65; P. Brimblecombe, 1987, p.7, 30.

14. Science History [Robert Boyle]; Wellcome Collection [Portrait of The Honourable Robert Boyle (1627–1691), Irish natural philosopher]. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence.

15. J. Morrison, Smithsonian, 11 Jan 2016 [Air Pollution Goes Back Way Further Than You Think]; C. Uglietti et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci, 24 Feb 2015 112 [Widespread pollution of the South American atmosphere predates the industrial revolution by 240 y]; Ohio State Univ, 9 Feb 2015 [Earliest evidence of large-scale human-produced air pollution in South America found].

16. J. Evelyn, Fumifugium, Godbid, 1661 (Wonderfully, you can read the entire text of Evelyn's book courtesy of the Internet Archive). M. Willes, The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, Yale Univ Press, 2017.

p.270: According to a note on "Onions and Allied Plants as Disinfectants" in the The Cultivator & Country Gentleman, Volume 28, 1866 (p.75): "In the time of the Great Plague in London, it was proposed to have large quantities of onions exposed in boats upon the Thames, which were to have been continually bruised, chopped and moved about, which it was imagined would abate the infection, supposing the plague to proceed from the innumerable armies of minute or unwholesome insects which were then floating in the air, and drawn in with the breath." But it sounds like the onions play a different role there? Stephen Porter, who has written extensively about the plague, says: "Present Remedies against the Plague, published in 1594, claimed that three or four peeled onions left on the ground for 10 days would absorb all the infection in the neighbourhood, and during one of the epidemics in London in the early 17th century, someone apparently had the idea of filling a ship with peeled onions and, when the wind was favourable, floating it down the Thames to the North Sea—the polluted air would be attracted to the onions and carried away, leaving the city clean." That sounds like Evelyn's quote reprised.

17. H. Ritchie, Our World in Data, 20 June 2017 [What the history of London's air pollution can tell us about the future of today's growing megacities]; C. Zerefos et al, Atmos Chem Phys, Vol 14, 2014 [Further evidence of important environmental information content in red-to-green ratios as depicted in paintings by great masters]; P. Brown, Guardian, 19 Feb 2017 [Monet's obsession with London fog]; M. Hudson, Telegraph, 15 Oct 2017 [How London's smog inspired the French impressionists]. H. Thoreau, Walden, Ticknor & Fields, 1854.

p.71: For a great recent review, see A. Souter, Dirty pretty things: air pollution in art from JMW Turner to today, The Guardian, 28 Oct 2020.

18. P. Thorsheim, Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain since 1800, Ohio Univ Press, 2006, p.1, p.4; "Coal Basins" in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, Vol 3, Oxford Univ Press, 2003, p.456.

19. S. Mosley, 2014.

20. H. Ritchie, Our World in Data, 20 June 2017 [What the history of London's air pollution can tell us about the future of today's growing megacities]; T. Hatton, Conversation, 14 Nov 2017 [Air pollution in Victorian-era Britain—its effects on health now revealed].

21. M. Akatsu, In: S. Sugiyama (ed), Economic History of Energy and Environment. Springer, 2015; "Chapter 1: The History of Air Pollution" in R. Boubel et al (eds), Fundamentals of Air Pollution, Academic Press, 1994, p.7.

22. J. Goodell, Big Coal, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007, p.100; D. French, When They Hid the Fire, Univ of Pittsburgh Press, 2017; C. Beecher and H. Beecher Stowe, The American Woman's Home, J. B. Ford & Co., 1869, p.43, p.69; P. Thorsheim, Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain since 1800, Ohio Univ Press, 2006, p.2.

23. Engineering and Technology History Wiki, 27 Jan 2016 [The Pearl Street Generating Station, 1882].

24. A. Lockwood, The Silent Epidemic, MIT Press, 2012, p.67; T. McCarthy, Auto Mania, Yale Univ Press, 2007, p.110; The Henry Ford Museum, [Henry Ford's Rouge]; M. Brush, Michigan Radio, 15 Aug 2011 [A settlement reached for part of River Rouge cleanup].

25. R. Russell, Stanford, 1880 [London Fogs].

26. B. Nemery, et al, Lancet, 3 March 2001 [The Meuse Valley fog of 1930: an air pollution disaster]; J. Wagner, Univ of Guelph, 2017 [The Meuse Valley Fog of 1930]; J. Firket, Trans Faraday Soc, Volume 32, 1936, pp.1192—96 [Fog along the Meuse valley]; A. Zimmer and B. Nemery in Air Pollution Episodes by P. Brimblecombe (ed). World Scientific, 2018, pp27—42.

p.76: Accounts of the Donora tragedy, in books like mine, give the impression that the pollution was a terrible, one-off episode. In fact, it was a way of life for the people who worked there in the steel industry. For a great personal account, see the chapter "Where I Come From" in Devra Lee Davis' book When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle against Pollution, Basic Books, 2002, p.5ff. She recalls her mother telling her "Today they might call it pollution. Back then, it was just a living".

27. P. Brimblecombe, in Air Pollution Episodes by P. Brimblecombe (ed). World Scientific, 2018, pp57—72; E. Jacobs, Am J Public Health, Apr 2018 [The Donora Smog Revisited: 70 Years After the Event That Inspired the Clean Air Act]; T. O'Neil, St. Louis Post Dispatch, 28 Nov 2016 [Nov. 28 1939: The day 'Black Tuesday' rolled into St. Louis]; D. French, When They Hid the Fire, Univ of Pittsburgh Press, 2017.

28. G. Fuller, The Invisible Killer, Melville House, 2018, p.39; M.Bell et al, Environ Health Perspect, Vol 112/1 2004 [A retrospective assessment of mortality from the London smog episode of 1952: the role of influenza and pollution]; P. Bharadwaj et al, Am J Respir Crit Care Med, 15 Dec 2016 [Early-Life Exposure to the Great Smog of 1952 and the Development of Asthma].

29. F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk]; A. Carlson and D. Burtraw (eds), Lessons from the Clean Air Act, Cambridge Univ Press, 2019; P. Brimblecombe, 1987, p.169; P. Brimblecombe, Weather, 2006, p311 [The Clean Air Act after 50 years].

30. M. Abella et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci, 30 Jul 2019 [Background gamma radiation and soil activity measurements in the northern Marshall Islands]; R. Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making Of The Hydrogen Bomb, Simon and Schuster. p.509.

31. R. Carson, Silent Spring, Houghton Mifflin, 2002, p.177; L. Cawley, BBC News, 16 May 2015 [Ozone layer hole: How its discovery changed our lives]; P. Grennfelt et al, Ambio 49, 21 Sep 2019 [Acid rain and air pollution: 50 years of progress in environmental science and policy]; R. Turner Holmes and G. Likens, "Chapter 9: The Discovery of Acid Rain at Hubbard Brook" in Hubbard Brook: The Story of a Forest Ecosystem, Yale Univ Press, 2016, p116ff.

32. I. Sinha, Guardian, 3 Dec 2009 [Bhopal: 25 years of poison]; I. Eckerman, The Bhopal Saga, Universities Press, 2005, p.96. For a more detailed scientific review, see E. Broughton, Environ Health, 2005; Vol 4, No 6, 2005 [The Bhopal disaster and its aftermath: a review].

33. NASA, 19 Oct 2006 [NASA and NOAA Announce Ozone Hole is a Double Record Breaker]

34. UK Dept for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), 14 Jan 2019 [Air quality: explaining air pollution—at a glance]; American Lung Association, 23 Apr 2019 [Clean Air Timeline].

35. C. Pope and D. Dockery, J Air Waste Manag Assoc, Vol 56, 2006 [Health effects of fine particulate air pollution: lines that connect; J. Kaiser, Science, 25 Jul 1997 [Showdown Over Clean Air Science].

36. World Bank, 2018 [World Urbanization Prospects: 2018 Revision]; NASA, 19 Aug 2019 [NASA Scientists Relate Urban Population to Air Pollution].

37. WHO Fact Sheet, 26 Jul 2019 [Tobacco]; D. Carrington and M. Taylor, Guardian, 27 Oct 2018 [Air pollution is the 'new tobacco', warns WHO head].

38. D. Dockery et al, N Engl J Med, 9 Dec 1993 [An association between air pollution and mortality in six U.S. cities]; J. Lepeule et al, Environ Health Perspect, Jul 2012 [Chronic exposure to fine particles and mortality: an extended follow-up of the Harvard Six Cities study from 1974 to 2009]; WHO Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database (update 2016) (retrieved Sep 2019); C. Pope, Arch Environ Health, Mar—Apr 1991 [Respiratory hospital admissions associated with PM10 pollution in Utah, Salt Lake, and Cache Valleys]; M. Smart, Brigham Young Univ Magazine, Spring 2007 [Clearing the Air: We can all breathe a little easier thanks to two decades of research by BYU's Arden Pope]; E. Grant, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Magazine, Fall 2012 [Prevailing Winds].

Chapter 4: Natural born polluters

1. I've not managed to track this statistic back to its source, but it is quoted here: S. Hare et al, Manchester Metropolitan University/Atmosphere, Climate & Environment Information Programme, 1999/2002 [Air Pollution Fact Sheet].

2. R. Pawankar et al, WAO, 2013 [The WAO White Book on Allergy]; Telegraph, 12 Jun 2009 [Hay fever questions and answers]; J. Emberlin, The Hay Fever Health Report 2009, UK National Pollen and Aerobiology Research Unit, 2010; M. Mahmood, Birmingham Univ, 18 Aug 2016 [How is pollen, pollution and climate change affecting our health?]; D. Mudarri, J Environ Public Health, 2016 [Valuing the Economic Costs of Allergic Rhinitis, Acute Bronchitis, and Asthma from Exposure to Indoor Dampness and Mold in the US].

3. R. Pawankar et al, WAO, 2013 [The WAO White Book on Allergy]; UK Met Office, [Pollen research to offer hope to hay fever sufferers]; J. Derksen and E. Pierson, Radboud Univ, 22 Aug 2012 [Pollen: Shape, Color and Size]; K. Kornei. Science, 25 Jan 2018 [Thunderstorm-triggered asthma attacks put under the microscope in Australia].

4. R. Pawankar et al (eds). Allergy Frontiers. Springer, 2009, p.7; M. Wyman, Hurd and Houghton, 1876 [Autumunal Catarrh (Hay Fever)]; C. Blackley, , Bailliere Tindall, & Cox, 1873 [Experimental Researches On The Causes And Nature Of Catarrhus Aestivus]; M. Mahmood, Birmingham Univ, 18 Aug 2016 [How is pollen, pollution and climate change affecting our health?];

5. R. Pawankar et al, WAO, 2013 [The WAO White Book on Allergy]; Asthma UK, Apr 2019 [Pollen, hay fever and asthma]; K. Strick, The Standard, 30 Apr 2018 [Something in the air: how to survive 'pollenution' season]; M. Mahmood, Birmingham Univ, 18 Aug 2016 [How is pollen, pollution and climate change affecting our health?]; K. Obtułowicz, Folia Med Cracov, Vol 34, 1993 [Air pollution and pollen allergy]; G. D'Amato, Respir Med, Jul 2001 [The role of outdoor air pollution and climatic changes on the rising trends in respiratory allergy]; J. Parker et al, Environ Health Perspect, Jan 2009 [Air Pollution and Childhood Respiratory Allergies in the United States].

6. D. Newton, Science and Political Controversy, ABC-CLIO, 2014, p.73; O. Kardan et al, Scientific Reports, Vol 5, 2015.

7. L. Naranjo, NASA Earthdata, 20 Nov 2011 [Volatile trees : Forests fill the air with more than just a fresh scent.]; W. Schlesinger, Nature, 6 Apr 2017 [Trees and Air Pollution]; D. Nowak, US Dept of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, 2002 [The Effects Of Urban Trees On Air Quality]; Wikipedia, retrieved 2019 [Petrichor].

8. V. Yli-Pelkonen et al, Landscape Urban Plan, Feb 2017 [Urban forests near roads do not reduce gaseous air pollutant concentrations but have an impact on particles levels]; J. Vidal, Guardian, 1 Dec 2016 [Trees may increase air pollution on city streets]; J. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vintage, 1961, p.91.

9. W. Wilson, Constructed Climates. Univ of Chicago Press, 2011; W. Date, Air Quality News, 30 Jul 2018 [Plants and trees 'not the solution' to air pollution in cities]; Z. Chiam et al, Sci Total Environ, 19 Jun 2019 [Particulate matter mitigation via plants: Understanding complex relationships with leaf traits]; H. Wang, Environ Sci Technol, 18 Jun 2019 [Efficient Removal of Ultrafine Particles from Diesel Exhaust by Selected Tree Species: Implications for Roadside Planting for Improving the Quality of Urban Air]; Y. Xing and P. Brimblecombe, Atmos Environ, Vol 201, 15 Mar 2019 [Role of vegetation in deposition and dispersion of air pollution in urban parks]; X. Long et al, Atmos Chem Phys, Vol 18, 2018 [Does afforestation deteriorate haze pollution in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH), China?].

10. Using data from World Cities Culture Forum [Percentage of public green space (parks and gardens)]; PM10 data from [WHO Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database (update 2016)], retrieved September 2019.

11. European Environment Agency (EEA), EEA Technical report No 10/2012, "Chapter 5: Wild-land fires" in [Particulate matter from natural sources and related reporting under the EU Air Quality Directive in 2008 and 2009]; NASA Earth Observatory, 7 Mar 2017 [People Cause Most U.S. Wildfires]; K. Granström, WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, Vol 101, 2007 [Wood processing as a source of terpene emissions compared to natural sources]; BBC News, 2 Aug 2019 [Arctic wildfires: How bad are they and what caused them?]; N. Cushing, Conversation, 12 Jan 2020 [Even for an air pollution historian like me, these past weeks have been a shock]; N. Evershed et al, Guardian, 24 Jan 2020 [How big are the fires burning in Australia?].

12. G. Williamson et al, Environ Res Lett, Vol 11, 2016 [A transdisciplinary approach to understanding the health effects of wildfire and prescribed fire smoke regimes]; R. Peltier, Conversation, 16 Oct 2017 [Wildfire smoke and health: 5 questions answered]; X. Liu et al, JGR Atmospheres, 16 Jun 2017 [Airborne measurements of western U.S. wildfire emissions: Comparison with prescribed burning and air quality implications].

13. C. Miller and U. Irfan, Vox, 12 Oct 2017 [Map: see where wildfires are causing record pollution in California]; J. Beitler, NASA, 17 Oct 2006 [Tracking Nature's Contribution to Pollution ]; C. Santiago and S. Scutti, CNN, 13 Oct 2017 [Week of wildfires polluting air as much as year of cars]; O. Millman, The Guardian, 21 Jul 2021 [New York air quality among worst in world as haze from western wildfires shrouds city].

14. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.222; J. Simon, Quartz, 15 May 2019 [Photos: Wildfire smoke is blanketing Mexico City].

15. M, Meyer, Conversation, 9 Jan 2013 [Smoke from bushfires poses a health hazard for all of us]; T. Glumac, ABC News, 4 Jan 2019 [Smoke from Gell River bushfire causes 'extreme' air pollution]; K. Aubusson and N. Gladstone, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 Dec 2019 [NSW bushfires: 'apocalyptic' health effects of Sydney's toxic air]; P. Gibbons, Conversation, 10 Jan 2013 [Fact check: do bushfires emit more carbon than burning coal?].

16. C. Santiago and S. Scutti, CNN, 13 Oct 2017 [Week of wildfires polluting air as much as year of cars]; WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.270—1; J. Liu et al, Environ Res, Jan 2015 [A systematic review of the physical health impacts from non-occupational exposure to wildfire smoke].

17. US National Interagency Fire Center, Total Wildland Fires and Acres (1926—2018), 2019 [Total Wildland Fires and Acres (1926–2018)].

p.100: Recent studies of wildfire smoke (and PM in particular) suggest it may be significantly more toxic than other sources of everyday particulates such as traffic. See R. Aguilera et al, Nature Communications, 15 Mar 2021 [Wildfire smoke impacts respiratory health more than fine particles from other sources: observational evidence from Southern California].

18. World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 19 May 2004 [Finding solutions to wildfires].

19. US EPA, [ Wildfire Smoke: A Guide for Public Health Officials, 2019 [PDF]]; A. Vu et al, Chem Res Toxicol, 17 Aug 2015 [Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in the Mainstream Smoke of Popular U.S. Cigarettes]; C. McMahon et al, in: P. Jones et al (eds), Carcinogenesis, Vol. 3: Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Raven Press, 1978, p. 61–73.

20. R. Pachauri et al, Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report: Summary for Policymakers [PDF], Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)/World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2014, p.4; AFP, Guardian, 29 Sep 2017 [Methane emissions from cattle are 11% higher than estimated]; EPA, [Overview of Greenhouse Gases: Methane].

21. Defra, 2013 [Air pollution from farming: preventing and minimising]; Y. Wu et al, Environ Pollut, Vol 218, 2016 [PM2.5 pollution is substantially affected by ammonia emissions in China]; B. Gu et al, Front Ecol Environ, Jun 2014 [Agricultural ammonia emissions contribute to China's urban air pollution].

22. Going vegan is, however, an excellent way to reduce your impact on the planet. See D. Carrington, Guardian, 31 May 2018 [Avoiding meat and dairy is 'single biggest way' to reduce your impact on Earth]. For more about nitrous oxide emissions, see EPA, [Overview of Greenhouse Gases: Nitrous Oxide].

23. US Geological Survey (USGS), 25 Jun 1997 [Pyroclastic flows]; USGS, 10 May 2017 [Volcanic gases can be harmful to health, vegetation and infrastructure]; S. George, International Pollution Issues, Dec 2014 [Volcanic pollution].

24. R. Russell, US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) National Digital Library [Aerial view of smoking volcano]. This aerial view of a volcano was taken in April 1977 and is explicitly identified as "public domain" by the USFWS. We've added the little percentage chart alongside to quantify what you might find in a typical plume (if there is such a thing).

25. A. Schmidt and C. Witham, NERC Planet Earth, 29 Sep 2016 [Air pollution from Icelandic volcanoes]; Skeptical Science, 2 Jun 2017 [Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?]; USGS, 18 Jan 2017 [Volcanoes can affect the Earth's climate]; USGS, 10 May 2017 [Volcanic gases can be harmful to health, vegetation and infrastructure].

26. D. Newton, Science and Political Controversy, ABC-CLIO, 2014, p.73.

27. L. Martin, Guardian, 24 Dec 2018 [What caused the tsunami in Indonesia and why was there no warning?]; E. Venzke, Global Volcanism Program, 2013 [Global Volcanism Program, 2013. Volcanoes of the World, v. 4.8.0.]; Wikipedia, retrieved Dec 2019 [1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora]; R. Stothers, Science, 15 Jun 1984 [The great tambora eruption in 1815 and its aftermath]; D. Cox, BBC News, 24 Jul 2017 [Would a supervolcano eruption wipe us out?].

28. D. Cox, BBC News, 24 Jul 2017 [Would a supervolcano eruption wipe us out?]; Der Spiegel, 26 Apr 2011 [Iceland Ash Did Pose Threat to Planes]; H. Hlodversdottir et al, BMJ Open, Sep 2016 [Long-term health effects of the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption: a prospective cohort study in 2010 and 2013]; Ó. Gissurardóttir et al, Scand J Public Health, Mar 2019 [Mental health effects following the eruption in Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland: A population-based study3]; Centre for Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics (COMET), 2019 [Quantifying Health And Aviation Hazards From Icelandic Volcanic Eruptions To Inform Government Policy]; M. Durand and J. Grattan, Lancet, 20 Jan 2001 [Effects of volcanic air pollution on health].

29. Volcano Discovery, 16 Feb 2015 [Holuhraun fissure eruption 2014–15 at Bardarbunga volcano, Iceland]; A. Schmidt and C. Witham, NERC Planet Earth, 29 Sep 2016 [Air pollution from Icelandic volcanoes]; A. Schmidt et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci, 20 Sep 2011 [Excess mortality in Europe following a future Laki-style Icelandic eruption]; A. Schmidt et al, JGR Atmospheres, 21 Aug 2015 [Satellite detection, long-range transport, and air quality impacts of volcanic sulfur dioxide from the 2014-2015 flood lava eruption at Bârðarbunga (Iceland)].

30. USGS, 10 May 2017 [Volcanic gases can be harmful to health, vegetation and infrastructure]; W. Broad, New York Times, 9 Feb 1993 [When a Volcano Turns Deadly for Those Studying Its Moods].

p.108: PA News, Guardian, 16 Mar 2022 [Saharan dust cloud makes English skies glow orange].

31. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.40; Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.3 [State Of Global Air 2018]; World Bank/IHME, 2016, p.13 [The Cost of Air Pollution].

p.109: There was a spectacular surge of Asian dust in Spring 2021. See H. Davidson, Guardian, 15 Mar 2021 [Beijing skies turn orange as sandstorm and pollution send readings off the scale].

32. UN Convention to Combat Desertification, 7 Jun 2001 [Secretary-General, in message on world day to combat desertification, warns livelihood of 1 billion people in 110 countries threatened].

33. US EPA, Health Risk of Radon, 2019 [Health Risk of Radon]; US CDC,, 22 Oct 2019 [United States Cancer Statistics].

34. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 19 Mar 2003 [Surprise! Lightning Has Big Effect On Atmospheric Chemistry].

35. K. Than, National Geographic, 10 Mar 2010 [Sea spray detected 900 miles inland].

36. V. Gusiakov, in Extreme Natural Hazards, Disaster Risks and Societal Implications, A. Ismail-Zadeh et al (eds). Cambridge Univ Press, 2014, p.230.

37. G. Moran, Grist, 12 Sep 2018 [44,000 Americans could end up dying from wildfire smoke every year]; WHO, 31 Aug 2017 [Asthma: Key Facts]; F. Johnston et al, Environ Health Perspect, May 2012 [Estimated global mortality attributable to smoke from landscape fires].

38. J. Upton, NRDC, 22 August 2016 [Pollution from Western Wildfires Is Making People Sick]; R. Pawankar, Asia Pac Allergy, Apr 2019 [Climate change, air pollution, and biodiversity in Asia Pacific: impact on allergic diseases]; J. Khan, ABC News, 1 Oct 2019 [Climate change could affect grass pollen seasons, and your hayfever]; J. Corderoy, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Nov 2014 [Australia has one of highest rates of asthma in the world]; E. Innes, Daily Mail, 20 Mar 2014 [Bad news for hay fever sufferers: This year's season will start a month early - and experts warn climate change could DOUBLE the number of sufferers].

Chapter 5: Going places?

1. H. Williams, Autogeddon, Jonathan Cape, 1990, p.28.

2. The websites quoted from are [tinyurl.com/pq5hbq3] and [tinyurl.com/y8zsb2hv].

3. As The Times itself has confirmed (and as you can check for yourself with a search of its archive), it wrote neither a leader nor any other article about any such thing; nor did The New York Times—nor any other Times, so far as I can see. Times journalist Rose Wild tried and failed to find the source of the Great Horse Manure Crisis on 13 January 2018. R. Wild, The Times, 23 Jan 2018 [We were buried in fake news as long ago as 1894]; Blogger Gregory S. Trachta attempts to trace the origin himself in G. Trachta, retrieved 2019 [Crisis of 1894], opting for S. Davies, Foundation for Economic Education, 1 Sep 2004 [The Great Horse-Manure Crisis of 1894].

4. The newspaper stories referred to here were sourced from the Times digital archive: Times, 2 Aug 1827, p.2, 23 Jul 1875, p.9, 16 February 1909, p.4; D. Pool, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, Simon and Schuster, 2012, p.30; C. McShane and J. Tarr, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century, JHU Press, 2007, p.26.

5. New York Times, 19 Apr 1896 [Berlin's Clean Streets; Example of What Good Municipal Government Can Do. Nine Million Square Yards of Pavement Kept in Perfect Order at a Cost of About $500,000 a Year]; 12 Jan 1895 [How Glasgow is Kept Clean; Streets are Swept Nightly and All the Work Is Done in a Business-Like Way—Economy Is a Feature.]; L. Brunt, Univ of Oxford, Discussion Papers in Economic and Social History, Feb 2000 [Where there's muck, there's brass: the market for manure in the Industrial Revolution]; S. Rockman, Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore, JHU Press, 2010, p1; Times, 18 Apr 1864, p.9; J. Tarr, American Heritage, Oct 1971 [Carriage Horses: Urban Pollution—Many Long Years Ago]. The importance of street cleaning is underlined by news articles about strikes, such as "A Scavengers' Strike", The Times, 18 April 1864, p9.

6. H. Ford, "Chapter 1: The Beginning of Business" in My Life and Work, Doubleday, 1922, p.26; The anecdote about the runaway manure cart is from S. Watts, The People's Tycoon, Vintage, 2005, p.18 (quoting a news item from the Detroit Free Press).

7. A. Kander et al, Power to the People, Princeton Univ Press, 2014 , p.182; Cornish Mining World Heritage [Engine Houses]; P. Brimblecombe, The Big Smoke: A History of Air Pollution in London Since Medieval Times. Methuen, 1987. p.98.

8. C. McGowan, Rail, Steam, and Speed, Columbia Univ Press, 2004. p.22.

9. UK Govt, [Historical coal data 1853–2016]; P. Thorsheim, Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain since 1800, Ohio Univ Press, 2006, p.4.

10. Legislation.gov.uk, [The Locomotive Act 1861].

11. C. McGowan, Rail, Steam, and Speed, Columbia Univ Press, 2004. p.22.

12. Wikipedia [Energy Density]; C. Woodford, Explainthatstuff.com, 2007 [Bicycles].

13. S. Carnot, Dover, 1960 [Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire]; C. Gillispie and R. Pisano, Lazare and Sadi Carnot: A Scientific and Filial Relationship, Springer, 2014, p.2. M. Grosser, Diesel the Man and his Engine, Atheneum/David & Charles, 1978, p.44.

14. M. Grosser, Diesel the Man and his Engine, Atheneum/David & Charles, 1978, p.54–60.

p.123: The chart at the top of the page has a small error. The y axis is labelled "Electricity (%)" but should, of course, read "Efficiency (%)".

15. G. Pahl, Biodiesel: Growing a New Energy Economy, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008; N. Möllers and K. Zachmann (eds), Past and Present Energy Societies, Transcript Verlag, 2012, p.15; R. Diesel, Progressive Publishing, 1897, p.18 [Diesel's Rational Heat Motor: A Lecture].

16. S. Leitman and B. Brant, Build Your Own Electric Vehicle, McGraw-Hill, 2008. p.34; EIA, Today in Energy, 10 Dec 2014 [California leads the nation in the adoption of electric vehicles]; P. Sisson, Curbed, 30 Jan 2018 [ California continues to lead the way on electric vehicles]; Porsche, 20 Apr 2011 [Prof. Ferdinand Porsche Created the First Functional Hybrid Car ]; D. Strohl, Wired, 18 Jun 2010 [Ford, Edison and the Cheap EV That Almost Was].

17. D. Hawranek, Der Spiegel, 21 Jul 2009 [Porsche and Volkswagen's Nazi Roots]; G. Gates et al, New York Times, 16 Apr 2017 [How Volkswagen's 'Defeat Devices' Worked]; J. Ewing, New York Times, 13 Jan 2017 [Volkswagen's Diesel Scandal: Who Has Been Charged?]; BBC News, 15 Apr 2019 [Former VW boss charged over diesel emissions scandal]; T. Leggett, BBC News, 5 May 2018 [How VW tried to cover up the emissions scandal]; A. Neslen, Guardian, 28 May 2019 [33m polluting cars still on EU roads after Dieselgate scandal]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 30 Aug 2016 [Emissions from new diesel cars are still far higher than official limit].

p.126: Car makers must be delighted that Volkswagen served as lightning conductor for most of the criticism on this issue, but others are far from blameless. See H. Tabuchi, New York Times, 14 Jan 2021 [Toyota to Pay a Record Fine for a Decade of Clean Air Act Violations], which charts the Japanese car maker's "$180 million settlement [following] a series of emissions-related scandals..."

18. UK Govt, 2019 [Cars registered for the first time by propulsion or fuel type (Table VEH-0253)].

19. P. Dauvergne, The Shadows of Consumption, MIT Press, 2010, p.62; J. Sousanis, Ward's Auto, 15 Aug 2011 [World Vehicle Population Tops 1 Billion Units]; S. Nathan, Engineer, 3 Jun 2019 [Rolls-Royce explains problem with Trent 1000]; M. Smith, WEF, 22 Apr 2016 [The number of cars worldwide is set to double by 2040].

20. UK Govt, 8 Sep 2016 [DfT Statistical Release: National Travel Survey: England 2015]; C.Mims, Quartz, 15 Oct 2013 [More Americans die from car pollution than car accidents]; E. Jaffe, City Lab, 7 Nov 2014 [Car Emissions vs. Car Crashes: Which One's Deadlier?].

21. Statista, 18 Sep 2017 [US Automotive Advertising]; W. Duggan, Benzinga. 7 Jul 2016 [Tesla Spends $6 On Advertising Per Vehicle; The Industry Average Is $1,000]; D. Wood et al, Trunk Roads & the Generation of Traffic, HMSO, 1994; Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 18th Report: Transport and the Environment, HMSO, 1994; J. Adams, Transport Planning: Vision & Practice, Routledge, 1981.

p.128: The idea that roadbuilding causes rather than solves traffic congestion is based on the arguments advanced in the mid-1990s by transport experts like Phil Goodwin of UCL and UWE and John Adams of University College London. Relevant references include Standing Committee on Trunk Road Assessment (SACTRA): Trunk Roads & the Generation of Traffic by D.A. Wood et al, HMSO, London, December 1994; RCEP 18th Report: Transport and the Environment by Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, London: HMSO, 1994; and Transport Planning: Vision & Practice by John Adams. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. For example, the RCEP argued: "We do not regard this cycle of continual road building facilitating continual growth of road traffic as environmentally sustainable." The order of that sentence is important: road building causes traffic growth, not the other way round. SACTRA said: "It will simply not be possible to cater for unrestrained demand for travel by private vehicle. Demand management measures and public transport policies are likely to form part of an overall transport strategy aimed at containing the demand for travel within the capacity of the road system." and Adams argued: "Policy is to build the road... capacity necessary to cope with the forecasts. An absolutely critical assumption made by the forecasters is that this capacity will be built. Sometimes this assumption enters directly and explicitly into the forecasting calculations. The greater the number of miles of motorway the forecaster assumes will be built, the greater the volume of traffic he will forecast, and the greater the number of miles of motorway will be built".

22. Wisconsin Dept Health Services, 12 Mar 2018 [Gasoline]; WHO, Aug 2017 [Lead Poisoning and Health: Fact Sheet 379]; L. Graber et al, Environ Health Perspect, June 2010 [Childhood lead exposure after the phaseout of leaded gasoline: an ecological study of school-age children in Kampala, Uganda]; UNEP, Mar 2017 [Leaded Petrol Phase-out: Global Status].

p.129: Disappointingly, a recent (2021) Guardian article tells that "the era of of leaded petrol is officially over", without mentioning that leaded fuel ("Avgas") is still used in airplane engines. See H. Horton, Guardian, 30 Aug 2021 [Leaded petrol era 'officially over' as Algeria ends pump sales]. For the latest on this, see US Federal Aviation Authority, 2019 [Leaded Aviation Fuel and the Environment]. For a more general introduction, try Scientific American, 3 Sep 2012 [Does the Continued Use of Lead in Aviation Fuel Endanger Public Health and the Environment?].

23. P. Wolfe et al, Environ Sci Technol, Vol 50/17, 2016 [Costs of IQ Loss from Leaded Aviation Gasoline Emissions].

24. S. Skerfving et al, Neurotoxicology, Jul 2015 [Late effects of low blood lead concentrations in children on school performance and cognitive functions]; W. Stewart, Am J Ind Med, Oct 2007 [Effects of lead on the adult brain: a 15-year exploration]; W. Stewart et al, Neurology, May 2006 [Past adult lead exposure is linked to neurodegeneration measured by brain MRI]; B. Schwarz et al, Neurology, Oct 2000 [Past adult lead exposure is associated with longitudinal decline in cognitive function]; K. Drum, Mother Jones, 11 Feb 2016 [Lead: America's Real Criminal Element]; R. Nevin, [Figures]; S. Mercurio, Understanding Toxicology, Jones & Bartlett, 2016, p.771; Reuters, New York Times, 7 May 2008 [Oil Companies Settle MTBE Pollution Suit]; J. Mouawad, New York Times, 8 May 2008 [Oil giants to settle lawsuit over water contaminated by MTBE]; D. Bellinger, PLos Med, May 2008 [Neurological and Behavioral Consequences of Childhood Lead Exposure]; S. Kumar, Indian J Occup Environ Med, Sep 2018 [Occupational and Environmental Exposure to Lead and Reproductive Health Impairment: An Overview]; D. Carrington, The Guardian, 21 Jun 2021 [Legacy of toxic leaded petrol lingers in air in London, study finds].

25. F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk].

26. EEA, 24 Nov 2015 [Many Europeans still exposed to harmful air pollution]; K. Mathiesen, Guardian, 11 Mar 2015 [Have diesel cars been unfairly demonised for air pollution?]; P. Nieuwenhuis, Conversation, 2 May 2017 [Fact Check: are diesel cars really more polluting than petrol cars?]; EEA, Air Quality in Europe, 2016, p.45 [Figure 6.3 Comparison of NOX standards and emissions for different Euro classes]; F. Caiazzo et al, Atmos Environ, Nov 2013 [Air pollution and early deaths in the United States. Part I: Quantifying the impact of major sectors in 2005]; R. Cooper et al, Indian J Occup Environ Med, Apr 2009 [The exposure to and health effects of antimony].

27. UK House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee, Sixth Report of Session 2014—15 [Air Quality Inquiry]; J. Chu, MIT News, 29 Aug 2013 [Study: Air pollution causes 200,000 early deaths each year in the U.S.]; F. Caiazzo et al, Atmos Environ, Nov 2013 [Air pollution and early deaths in the United States. Part I: Quantifying the impact of major sectors in 2005]; Sierra Club, retrieved 2019 [Driving Up the Heat: SUVs and Global Warming].

p.132: A couple of interesting recent articles confirm that SUVs are making matters far worse: R. Syal, Guardian, 26 Feb 2021 [SUVs and extra traffic cancelling out electric car gains in Britain]. V. Smil, IEEE Spectrum, 27 Aug 2021 [The Age of the Car Is Gone, That of the SUV Has Succeeded].

28. F. Caiazzo et al, Atmos Environ, Nov 2013 [Air pollution and early deaths in the United States. Part I: Quantifying the impact of major sectors in 2005]; S. Yim and S. Barrett, Environ Sci Technol, Vol 46/8, 2012 [Public Health Impacts of Combustion Emissions in the United Kingdom]; J. Chu, MIT News, 29 Aug 2013 [Study: Air pollution causes 200,000 early deaths each year in the U.S.].

29. İ. Reşitoğlu et al, Clean Technol Environ Policy, Jan 2015 [The pollutant emissions from diesel-engine vehicles and exhaust after treatment systems].

30. N. Van Mead, Guardian, 13 Feb 2017 [Tipping point: revealing the cities where exercise does more harm than good]; M. Tainio et al, Prev Med, Jun 2016 [Can air pollution negate the health benefits of cycling and walking?].

31. M. Holder, Air Quality News, 16 Feb 2016 [Higher air pollution health risk inside car, study finds]; Berkeley Wellness, 6 Dec 2016 [Pollution inside your car]; R. Chaney et al, PLoS One, Vol 12/11, 2017 [Personal exposure to fine particulate air pollution while commuting: An examination of six transport modes on an urban arterial roadway].

32. R. Chaney et al, PLoS One, Vol 12/11, 2017 [Personal exposure to fine particulate air pollution while commuting: An examination of six transport modes on an urban arterial roadway].

33. A. Goela and P. Kumar, Atmos Environ, Apr 2015 [Characterisation of nanoparticle emissions and exposure at traffic intersections through fast–response mobile and sequential measurements].

341. M. Lavery, Yorkshire Evening Post, 5 Dec 2017 [Fears raised for taxi drivers' jobs if Leeds Clean Air Zone £12.50 daily charge introduced].

35. F. Gany et al, J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol, Mar 2017 [Perception and reality of particulate matter exposure in New York City taxi drivers.]; China Dialogue, 3 Jan 2013 [Taxi drivers in China have highest PM2.5 air pollutant exposure].

36. E. Zagury et al, Occup Environ Med, Jun 2000 [Exposure of Paris taxi drivers to automobile air pollutants within their vehicles]; S. Wu et al, Sci Total Environ, 1 Jun 2011 [Exposures to PM2.5 components and heart rate variability in taxi drivers around the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.]; F. Trevithick, Life of Richard Trevithick, Vol 1, E. & F.N. Spon, 1872, p.111.

37. EIA, 23 Mar 2018 [Electric Power Monthly]; J. Eckart, WEF, 28 Nov 2017 [Batteries can be part of the fight against climate change - if we do these five things]

p.137: The figure of 125,000 km (80,000 miles) is a comparison between battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and diesel and comes from a German study, based on a German power mix of coal and renewables; the same study quotes 60,000 km (37,000 miles) as the break-even point for a petrol car. See M. Held et al, Now GMBH [National Organization for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology GmbH], 2016, p.10 [Innovative Antriebe und Fahrzeuge—Elektro-Pkw und Nutzfahrzeuge [PDF]]. For a plugin hybrid electric vehicle ("PHEV"), the same study quotes break-even points of 25,000 km (15,500 miles) and 55,000 km (34,000 miles). Auke Hoekstra from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology argues that the true figure is closer to 25,000 km (16,000 miles) if you compare a typical modern electric (Polestar2) with a typical fossil car (the equivalent Volvo). For more, see A. Hoekstra, Joule, 19 June 2019 [The Underestimated Potential of Battery Electric Vehicles to Reduce Emissions].

p.137: The use of child labor in mining cobalt for lithium-ion rechargeable batteries (the ones in everything from laptops and smartphones to power tools and electric cars) is one of the issues most of us know little or nothing about. See D. Dahler, CBS News, 25 Nov 2017 [Congo's child labor spurs demand from Apple, Tesla for ethically produced cobalt]; CBS News, 5 Mar 2018 [CBS News finds children mining cobalt for batteries in the Congo]; P. Pattison, Guardian, 8 Nov 2021 ['Like slave and master': DRC miners toil for 30p an hour to fuel electric cars].

p.137: F. Firdaus and T. Levitt, Guardian, 19 Feb 2022 ['We are afraid': Erin Brockovich pollutant linked to global electric car boom].

p.137: Having said all this, a recent MIT study found electric cars "easily more climate friendly" and "often cheaper, too." See V. Penney, New York Times, 15 Jan 2021 [Electric Cars Are Better for the Planet—and Often Your Budget, Too].

p.137: A recent analysis by the Transport & Environment campaign group argues that electric car batteries need far less raw materials than fossil-fuel cars. I must admit that I find this argument—based on a comparison of two different things—confusing and unpersuasive. Isn't it a bit like saying that a nuclear bomb uses only a tiny bit of plutonium compared to, say, a huge pile of TNT, so the issue of radioactivity is unimportant? No, it's not even that. Lithium and cobalt (raw materials in rechargeable batteries) are not comparable to oil (consumed fuel), and batteries aren't consumed in the same way that oil is.

p.137: More evidence of an electric car divide: The US Energy Information Administration predicts that conventional (fossil-fueled) vehicles will not peak until 2038, largely because poorer (non-OECD) countries will still be buying them long after richer (OECD) ones have switched.

38. F. Amato (ed), Non-Exhaust Emissions: An Urban Air Quality Problem for Public Health; Impact and Mitigation Measures, Academic Press, 2018; P. Kole at al, Int J Environ Res Public Health, 20 Oct 2017 [Wear and Tear of Tyres: A Stealthy Source of Microplastics in the Environment]; J. Loeb, Engineering & Technology, 10 Mar 2017 [Emissions from wear of brakes and tyres likely to be higher in supposedly clean vehicles, experts warn].

p.138: Engineers are working on solutions to the problem of tyre pollution. See for example Students create device to capture car tyre microplastic debris, BBC News, 21 November 2020. As Gary Fuller notes in How smart braking could help cut electric car emissions, Guardian, 29 January 2021, regenerative braking will also help cut non-exhaust emissions. See also D. Carrington, Guardian, 3 Jun 2022 [Car tyres produce vastly more particle pollution than exhausts, tests show].

39. ".... there is almost no evidence of a safe level of PM exposure or a threshold below which no adverse health effects occur." quoted from F. Cassee et al, Inhal Toxicol, Dec 2013 [Particulate matter beyond mass: recent health evidence on the role of fractions, chemical constituents and sources of emission]; F. Kelly, Guardian, 4 Aug 2017 [London should lead in showing electric cars will not tackle air pollution]; H. Williams, Autogeddon, Jonathan Cape, 1990, p.41.

40. Berkeley Wellness, 6 Dec 2016 [Pollution inside your car]; The Ecology Center, [Guide to New Vehicles 2012]; K. Brodzik et al, J Environ Sci (China), 1 May 2014 [In-vehicle VOCs composition of unconditioned, newly produced cars]; D. Gould, New Scientist, 29 May 1993 [On the scent of something big—Donald Gould thinks we should mind what we sniff].

41. X. Wang et al, J Air Waste Manag Assoc, Apr 2015 [Characteristics of particulate matter emissions from toy cars with electric motors]. For an interesting counterbalance, there's the news that Matchbox is launching toy electric cars, including a miniature Tesla, as described in BBC News, 15 Apr 2021 [Matchbox cars get green makeover in eco drive].

42. A. Hickman et al, Proc IMechE Part F: J Rail and Rapid Transit, Vol 232/6, 2018 [Evaluation of air quality at the Birmingham New Street Railway Station].

p.140: It's interesting to compare what I found in Birmingham with what the UK government's COMEAP (Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants) discovered about the London Underground: "just one hour on the tube is as toxic as spending an entire day stood next to a busy road." See A. Finnis, inews, 10 Jan 2019 [One hour on the tube is as toxic as standing next to a busy road for an entire day].

p.140: Following my hands-on study of dirty old diesels, it was really interesting to see a piece in The Guardian noting that brand new British trains are subjecting travellers to high levels of nitrogen dioxide. See G. Topham, Guardian, 16 Sep 2021 [Pollution on some new UK trains '13 times one of London's busiest roads'].

43. R. Reagan, The History Place [Tear Down this Wall]; R. Harrabin, BBC News, 8 Apr 2013 [Margaret Thatcher: How PM legitimised green concerns]; M. Hamer, Wheels Within Wheels, Routledge, 1987.

44. Eurostat, 2018 [Number of passenger cars, 2005 and 2015].

45. UK DVLA,2015 [How many people hold driving licences in the UK?]; UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2017 [Overview of the UK population: July 2017]; Transport for London, 2012 [Roads Task Force—Technical Note 12: How many cars are there in London and who owns them?]; Data.gov.uk, 2017 [GB Driving Licence Data]; UK Govt, 8 Sep 2016 [National Travel Survey: England 2015]; P. Gomm and I. Wengraf, RAC Foundation, London, 2013, p.11, "Length of car journeys to work", in [The Car and the Commute: The Journey to Work in England and Wales]; Project WNYC [Average Commute Times in the United States].

p.142: My argument here is that not everyone drives. Even so, it's important to remember that many people do. There are still something like 2.6 million cars registered in London (according to Transport for London), so, whatever the demographic data tells us, traffic is still a huge problem.

46. M. Sivak and B. Schoettle, Univ of Michigan, Report UMTRI-2016-4, Jan 2016 [Recent Decreases in the Proportion of Persons with a Driver's License across All Age Groups]; J. Beck. The Atlantic, 22 Jan 2016 [The Decline of the Driver's License]; M. Lavelle, National Geographic, 18 Dec 2013 [U.S. Teenagers Are Driving Much Less: 4 Theories About Why]; A. Carrns, New York Times, 1 Jul 2016 [New Cars Are Too Expensive for the Typical Family, Study Finds]; A. Rayner, Guardian, 25 Sep 2011 [The End of Motoring]; International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, 2017 [World car production statistics]; H. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Random House, 1971, p.18; H. Cheong, Wapcar, 20 Jun 2020 [Millennials say car culture is for old people, who is to be blamed?.]

p.143: Also relevant is C. Davies, Guardian, 5 Apr 2021 [Number of young people with driving licence in Great Britain at lowest on record].

Chapter 6: Made in China?

1. J. Vidal, Guardian, 30 Oct 2006 [How world's biggest ship is delivering our Christmas—all the way from China]; W. Kremer, BBC World Service, 19 Feb 2013 [How much bigger can container ships get?].

2. C. McNair, eMarketer, 29 Jan 2018 [Worldwide Retail and Ecommerce Sales: January 2018].

3. NYC.gov, 19 Apr 2018 [New York City's Air is Cleaner Than It Has Ever Been Since Monitoring Began]; Joel Schwartz, American Enterprise Institute, 9 Aug 2005 [Air Pollution]; American Legislative Exchange Council, Environmental Stewardship [Environmental Stewardship].

p.146: Water pollution is misreported in much the same way as air pollution. See for example: Quality of Rivers in England and Wales best for over a century, Environment Agency Press Release, October 2009. Freshwater wildlife thrives in cleanest rivers since Industrial Revolution by Ian Sample, The Guardian, 31 December 2010. The Guardian eventually realized it had been duped and ran a corrective story: How the Environment Agency has spun the news on river quality by John Vidal, The Guardian, 30 August 2011. But it wasn't alone in buying into the spin: Wales' air quality at best level since industrial revolution by Darren Devine, Wales Online, 14 October 2009. One problem with stories like this is that they average—and the details of really bad water or air quality are lost in the bigger picture. So while Wales might be cleaner than it has been for a long time, it's also true that some people continue to breathe toxic levels of pollutants; see for example Dangerous levels of roadside pollution in Wales 'overlooked' by Paul Piggott, BBC News, 13 Feb 2019.

4. F. Caiazzo et al, Atmos Environ, Nov 2013 [Air pollution and early deaths in the United States. Part I: Quantifying the impact of major sectors in 2005]; UK House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee, Sixth Report of Session 2014—15, p.8—9 [Air Quality Inquiry]; WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.20; US EIA, 2009—19 [Electric power monthly]; US EIA, FAQ, 22 October 2019 [How many and what kind of power plants are there in the United States?].

5. UK DEFRA, 15 Feb 2019 [Emissions Of Air Pollutants in the UK, 1970 To 2017 [PDF]]; F. Caiazzo et al, Atmos Environ, Nov 2013 [Air pollution and early deaths in the United States. Part I: Quantifying the impact of major sectors in 2005].

6. H. Ritchie and M. Roser, Our World in Data, Apr/Oct 2017 [Air Pollution].

7. The Henry Ford, [Ford Company Chronology]; Ford, 2019 [Worldwide Locations]; History.com, 13 Nov 2009 [Ford Motor Company unveils the Model T]; Economist Intelligence Unit, 22 Nov 2016 [Key player: Ford]; B. Vlasic, New York Times, 18 Oct 2016 [Ford Plants Go to Mexico, but U.S. Jobs Stay Around]; K. Bradsher, New York Times, 21 Jun 2017 [Ford's Signal to the Auto World: Here Comes China].

8. P. Dauvergne, The Shadows of Consumption, MIT Press, 2010, p.62; J. Sousanis, Ward's Auto, 15 Aug 2011 [World Vehicle Population Tops 1 Billion Units]; R. Kuczynski, Foreign Affairs, Oct 1928 [The World's Population]; NPR, 4 Jul 2006 [Behind the Ever-Expanding American Dream House]; A. Kotlowitz in J. Schor and D. Holt (eds), The Consumer Society Reader, The New Press, 2000, p. 281; I. Morris, The Measure of Civilization, Princeton Univ Press, 2013; US EIA, Today in Energy, 18 Feb 2015 [Energy efficiency improvements have largely offset effect of more, larger homes].

9. H. Ritchie and M. Roser, Our World in Data, Apr/Oct 2017 [Air Pollution], using original data from OECD, 2014 [How Was Life? Global Well-being since 1820], Z. Klimont et al, 2013 [The last decade of global anthropogenic sulfur dioxide: 2000–2011 emissions] and S. Smith et al, 2011 [Anthropogenic sulfur dioxide emissions: 1850–2005].

10. A. Morton, Guardian, 12 May 2019 [The climate change election: where do the parties stand on the environment?]; NYC.gov, 19 Apr 2018 [New York City's Air is Cleaner Than It Has Ever Been Since Monitoring Began]; The American Lung Association State of the Air 2019 report lists New York City as the 10th worst for ozone in the United States; the World Health Organization's Ambient Air Pollution Database has NYC just inside the guidelines for PM2.5 and PM10 particulates.

11. C. Brahic, New Scientist, 28 Jul 2008 [33% of China's carbon footprint blamed on exports]; R. Harrabin, BBC News, 30 Sep 2009 [Britons creating 'more emissions']; R, Harrabin, BBC News, 5 Feb 2019 [Climate change: UK CO2 emissions fall again]; Z. Hausfather, Carbon Brief, 4 Feb 2019 [Analysis: Why the UK's CO2 emissions have fallen 38% since 1990]; L. Hardt et al, Appl Energy, 1 August 2018 [Untangling the drivers of energy reduction in the UK productive sectors: Efficiency or offshoring?].

12. D. Helm and C. Hepburn (eds), The Economics and Politics of Climate Change, OUP, 2009.

13. Mongabay.com, 1 Dec 2005 [U.S. 'exporting' carbon emissions to China says study].

14. S. Goldberg, Guardian, 19 Jan 2014 [CO2 emissions are being 'outsourced' by rich countries to rising economies]; IPCC, Feb 2018, p.46 Figure TS.5. [Technical Summary]; Wikipedia, 2019 [List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions].

15. Environmental News Network, 21 Jul 2010 [Exporting Pollution]; Reuters/South China Morning Post, 20 Jul 2017 [China's air quality slumps in first six months of the year]; E. Wong, New York Times, 1 Apr 2013 [Air Pollution Linked to 1.2 Million Premature Deaths in China]; J. He et al, N Engl J Med, Vol 353, 2005 [Major Causes of Death among Men and Women in China]; T. Wu et al, Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, May 2019 [Association between particulate matter air pollution and cardiovascular disease mortality in Lanzhou, China].

16. K. Than, National Geographic, 24 Jan 2014 [How Much Is U.S. to Blame for "Made-in-China" Pollution?]; J. Lin et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci, 4 Feb 2014 [China's international trade and air pollution in the United States].

17. Y. Zhou, Conversation, 22 May 2017 [Association between particulate matter air pollution and cardiovascular disease mortality in Lanzhou, China]; X. Li and Y. Zhou, Strateg Manag J, 16 Mar 2017 [Offshoring Pollution while Offshoring Production?].

18. S. Bernard and A. Kazmin, Financial Times (FT), 11 Dec 2018 [Dirty air: how India became the most polluted country on earth]; K. Balakrishnan et al, Lancet, 1 Jan 2019 [The impact of air pollution on deaths, disease burden, and life expectancy across the states of India: the Global Burden of Disease]; S. Goldberg, Guardian, 19 Jan 2014 [CO2 emissions are being 'outsourced' by rich countries to rising economies]; Phys.org, 10 Aug 2015 [China 'exporting' ozone pollution to US, study says]; International Energy Agency (IEA), [World Energy Outlook 2017]; M. Greenstone et al, Univ of Chicago, 2018 [North India AQLI].

19. J. Knight and S. Ding. China's Remarkable Economic Growth, Oxford Univ Press, 2012, p.4, 220. L. Brandt and T. Rawski (eds), China's Great Economic Transformation, Cambridge Univ Press, 2008; Cost Of Pollution In China: Economic Estimates Of Physical Damages. World Bank, 2007; C. Stockdale and D. McIntyre, NBC News, 30 Jan 2012 [8 Industries China leads where the US used to].

20. Cost Of Pollution In China: Economic Estimates Of Physical Damages. World Bank, 2007, p.xi; M. Wang et al, Public Health Rep, Mar—Apr 2011 [Analysis Of National Coal-mining Accident data In China, 2001–2008]; WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.40, 49.

21. Health Effects Institute (HEI) [State Of Global Air 2018]; P. Garzón and L. Salazar-López, New York Times, 21 Jul 2017 [China's Other Big Export: Pollution]; M. Forsythe, New York Times, 5 Jan 2017 [China Aims to Spend at Least $360 Billion on Renewable Energy by 2020]; T. Donaldson. Sourcing Journal, 27 Oct 2017 [China Shutters 80,000 Factories in Pollution Crackdown]; Global Wind Energy Council, 2019 [Global Statistics]; T. Phillips, Guardian, 19 Jan 2017 [China builds world's biggest solar farm in journey to become green superpower].

22. Reuters, 21 Jan 2019 [China's coal output hits highest in over 3 years as mines start up]; Carbon Brief, 25 Mar 2019 [Mapped: The world's coal power plants]; M. McGrath, BBC News, 20 Nov 2019 [Climate change: China coal surge threatens Paris targets].

23. Cost Of Pollution In China: Economic Estimates Of Physical Damages. World Bank, 2007; N. Klein, This Changes Everything, Simon & Schuster, 2014, p. 193 (ebook).

p.159: We shouldn't assume that air pollution hits the poorest hardest only in countries such as China and India. See for example F. Harvey, 28 Dec 2021 [Labour demands stricter air pollution limits after child poverty link revealed].

24. Q. Zhang et al, Nature, 30 Mar 2017 [Transboundary health impacts of transported global air pollution and international trade].

25. BBC News, 5 Oct 2007 [UK 'exporting emissions' to China]; A. Hasanbeigi et al, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Dec 2015 [Comparison of Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions Intensity of the International Iron and Steel Industry: Case Studies from China, Germany, Mexico, and the United States]; L. Tofani, Pulitzer Center, 16 Dec 2007 [They Pay the Cost for China's Cheap Labor]; C. Ivanovich et al, Atmos Chem Phys Discuss, 2019 [Climate benefits of proposed carbon dioxide mitigation strategies for international shipping and aviation].

26. C. Rose, The Dirty Man of Europe, Simon & Schuster, 1990; D. Pellow, Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice, MIT Press, 2007.

27. Cost Of Pollution In China: Economic Estimates Of Physical Damages. World Bank, 2007; Greenpeace Press Release, 28 Oct 2009 (originally https://www.greenpeace.org/archive-india/en/news/pearl-river-poisoned-by-factories-china281009/, although that is no longer online and there is no archive of it. However, the original report is still available here [Poisoning the Pearl]. ; Greenpeace International, 2011 [Dirty Laundry]; NASA, 15 Sep 2015 [The World's Largest Urban Area].

28. D. Steinbock, Foreign Policy Journal, 1 May 2019 []; J. Vidal, Guardian, 14 Dec 2013 [Toxic 'e-waste' dumped in poor nations, says United Nations]; J. Vidal, Guardian, 30 Oct 2006 [How world's biggest ship is delivering our Christmas - all the way from China]; S. Needhidasan et al, J Environ Health Sci Eng, Vol 12/36, 2014 [Electronic waste—an emerging threat to the environment of urban India].

29. S. Watson, NPR, 28 Jun 2018 [China Has Refused To Recycle The West's Plastics. What Now?]; World Trade Organization (WTO), 18 Jul 2017 [Notification: China]; M. Taylor, The Guardian, 2 Jan 2018 [Rubbish already building up at UK recycling plants due to China import ban]; Reuters, 22 May 2019 [Philippines' Duterte loses patience, orders trash shipped back Canada].

30. S. Edwards, Devex, 2017 [Developed countries 'exporting pollution' by trading second-hand vehicles to poorer countries, experts say]; R. de Jong, FIA Foundation, 15 Sep 2016 [Exporting Pollution: Dumping Dirty Fuels and Vehicles in Africa].

31. A. Leonard, The Story of Stuff, Free Press, 2010, p.224; D. Pellow, Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice, MIT Press, 2007, p.108.

p.164: For these reasons, fly ash is now more likely to end up in the ground. Hence the title of a typical 2009 New York Times article Creating a Landfill to Have Cleaner Air, which describes how the scrubbers on a typical power plant smokestack produce 300,000–400,000 tons of waste per year.

32. Secretariat of the Basel Convention [Basel Convention].

p.165: The rules on waste export were tightened in January 2021. See K. McVeigh, Guardian, 29 Dec 2020 [New rules to tackle 'wild west' of plastic waste dumped on poorer countries].

p.165: For more on where your trash ends up, see S. Laville, Guardian, 17 May 2021 [UK plastics sent for recycling in Turkey dumped and burned, Greenpeace finds].

33. P. Pochanart et al in A. Stohl (ed) Intercontinental Transport of Air Pollution, Springer, 2004. p. 99—130; E. Wong, New York Times, 20 Jan 2014 [China Exports Pollution to U.S., Study Finds]; UCI Press Release, 20 Jan 2014 [Made in China for us: Air pollution as well as exports]; Phys.org, 10 Aug 2015 [China 'exporting' ozone pollution to US, study says]; W. Verstraeten et al, Nat Geosci, Vol 8, 2015 [Rapid increases in tropospheric ozone production and export from China]; NASA JPL, 10 Aug 2015 [Nature, Chinese Pollution Offset U.S. West Ozone Gains].

34. NASA Earth Observatory: Image of the Day, 29 Oct 2004 [Pollution over China Blows out to Sea].

35. E. Hilaire and L. Guang, Guardian, 13 Jan 2015 [Hebei's steel cities and China's pollution crisis—in pictures]; D. Roberts. Bloomberg News, 27 Nov 2014 [China's Pollution Solution: Move Factories Abroad].

36. P. Garzón and L. Salazar-López, New York Times, 21 Jul 2017 [China's Other Big Export: Pollution]; S. Sengupta, New York Times, 24 Nov 2018 [The World Needs to Quit Coal. Why Is It So Hard?].

p.167: China has recently (September 2021) announced that it won't be building any more coal-fired power plants outside its own country. This is really significant, and very welcome, but it comes with two major caveats. First, the economics of coal are now so poor that it doesn't really make sense for China to spend its money that way. So this is arguably less of an environmental decision than a pragmatic, economic one. Second, there's still a massive commitment to coal inside China. See V. Ni, Guardian, 22 Sep 2021 ['Betting on a low-carbon future': why China is ending foreign coal investment].

37. International Energy Agency, 2017 [World Energy Outlook]; J. Ambrose, Guardian, 11 Jun 2019 [Energy industry's carbon emissions rise at fastest rate in nearly a decade]; US EIA, Today in Energy, 14 May 2014 [China produces and consumes almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined]; US EIA, Today in Energy 27 Sep 2017 [Chinese coal-fired electricity generation expected to flatten as mix shifts to renewables].

38. US EIA, Today in Energy 27 Sep 2017 [Chinese coal-fired electricity generation expected to flatten as mix shifts to renewables]

39. BBC News, 5 Oct 2007 [UK 'exporting emissions' to China]; M. Albert, Stop the Killing Train: Radical Visions for Radical Change, South End Press, 1994, p.41.

40. J. Kaiman, Guardian, 20 Dec 2013 [China faces $176bn bill to clean up air pollution]; T. Stoerk, EDF Market Forces, 17 May 2018 [How China is cleaning up its air pollution faster than the post-Industrial UK]; J. Gan, GovInsider, 19 Jun 2019 [How pollution data pressured China to clean up its act]; BBC News, 20 Jan 2016 [What is China doing to tackle its air pollution?]; Greenpeace Asia, 11 Jan 2018 [PM2.5 in Beijing down 54%, but nationwide air quality improvements slow as coal use increases]; Greenpeace Asia, 12 Jan 2018 [Analysis of [China's] air quality trends in 2017]; Reuters, 5 Mar 2017 [China vows new steel, coal capacity cuts to make sky blue]; W. Wang et al, Environ Sci Technol, 15 Jul 2009 [Atmospheric Particulate Matter Pollution during the 2008 Beijing Olympics]; A. Jamieson, Telegraph, 22 Jun 2009 [Beijing Olympics were the most polluted games ever, researchers say]; J. Huang et al, The Lancet, 1 Jul 2018 [Health impact of China's Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan: an analysis of national air quality monitoring and mortality data].

Chapter 7: Safe indoors?

1. N. Klepeis et al, J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol, May—June 2001 [The National Human Activity Pattern Survey (NHAPS): a resource for assessing exposure to environmental pollutants.]; C. Potera, Environ Health Perspect, Jan 2011 [Indoor Air Quality: Scented Products Emit a Bouquet of VOCs]; M. Dennekamp et al, Occup Environ Med, Aug 2001 [Ultrafine particles and nitrogen oxides generated by gas and electric cooking].

2. Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.1 [State Of Global Air 2018]; Practical Action, [Stop the Killer in the Kitchen]; WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.20; D. Carrington, Guardian, 22 Feb 2016 [Indoor and outdoor air pollution 'claiming at least 40,000 UK lives a year']; WHO, 8 May 2018 [Household air pollution and health].

3. Simon Nkoitoi, Opportunity Fund for Developing Countries, 2005 [The Life of a Maasai Woman]; Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves/Practical Action, 2019 [Gender and Livelihoods: Impacts of Clean Cookstoves in South Asia]; E. Goulding, TIME, 5 Dec 2017 [Humans Have a Right to Breathe Clean Air].

4. D. Fullerton et al, Occup Environ Med, Nov 2009 [Biomass fuel use and indoor air pollution in homes in Malawi]; WHO, 8 May 2018 [Household air pollution and health]; State Of Global Air 2018, HEI, p.6.

5. H. Warwick and A. Doig, Smoke — the Killer in the Kitchen, ITDG Publishing, 2004; World Bank/Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), 2016, p.x [The Cost of Air Pollution].

6. State Of Global Air 2018, HEI, p.6; Women's Refugee Commission, 15 Mar 2006 [Dying for Firewood].

7. WHO, 8 May 2018 [Household air pollution and health]; H. Warwick and A. Doig, Smoke — the Killer in the Kitchen, ITDG Publishing, 2004; E. Adaji et al, Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, Vol 26/4, 2019 [Understanding the effect of indoor air pollution on pneumonia in children under 5 in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review of evidence].

8. C. Buckley, New York Times, 28 Feb 2018 [Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Has Killed Over 100 in China This Year]; US CDC, 2019 [Carbon Monoxide]; US EPA, [Carbon Monoxide's Impact on Indoor Air Quality]; E. Nagourney, New York Times, 26 Feb 2008 [Hazards: Enlisting Hospitals in Fight Against Carbon Monoxide].

9. M. Dennekamp et al , Occup Environ Med, Aug 2001 [Ultrafine particles and nitrogen oxides generated by gas and electric cooking]; University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Center for Science Education, [Nitrogen Oxides]; I. Sample, Guardian, 17 Feb 2019 [Cooking Sunday roast causes indoor pollution 'worse than Delhi']; J. Gillis and B. Nilles, New York Times, 1 May 2019 [Your Gas Stove Is Bad for You and the Planet]; ACS, 5 Jan 2016 [Teflon and Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA)]; A. Kirby, BBC News, 29 Jan 2004 [Frying pan fumes 'kill canaries']; R. Wells et al, Am J Vet Res, Jul 1982 [Acute toxicosis of budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) caused by pyrolysis products from heated polytetrafluoroethylene: clinical study.

p.179: One of the earliest studies into health harms from gas cooking was carried out by Harvard's Frank E. Speizer and colleagues in 1980 and found (among other things) that "children from households with gas stoves had a greater history of respiratory illness before age 2". F. Speizer et al, 1980 [Respiratory disease rates and pulmonary function in children associated with NO2 exposure].

p.179: Recent research at Birmingham and Bath Universities suggests cooking pollution from things like deep fat frying is longer lasting than previously supposed, "making a prolonged contribution to poor air quality and human health". See: Birmingham University, 8 Dec 2020 [Pollution from cooking remains in atmosphere for longer—study].

10. Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.8 [State Of Global Air 2018].

11. World Bank, Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) database/WHO Global Household Energy database, retrieved Jan 2020 [Access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking (% of population)].

12. Asthma: T. Ng et al, Thorax, Aug 2001 [Nitrogen dioxide exposure from domestic gas cooking and airway response in asthmatic women]. There is a lot of discussion about indoor gas cooking in D. Jarvis et al, WHO, 2010, Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality: Selected Pollutants, [5. Nitrogen dioxide]. According to that document, the proposed outdoor NO2 guideline value is around 40μg/m3, which converts to 21.3ppb according to Defra's conversion factors.

13. US EPA, [Volatile Organic Compounds' Impact on Indoor Air Quality]; L. Hamers, Science News for Students 27 Feb 2018 [Household products can really pollute the air].

14. E. Grossman, Science News for Students, 23 Sep 2016 [Laundering clothes may send indoor pollutants outdoors]; C. Potera, Environ Health Perspect, Jan 2011 [Indoor Air Quality: Scented Products Emit a Bouquet of VOCs]; US EPA, [Volatile Organic Compounds' Impact on Indoor Air Quality]; S. Farmer et al, Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, 15 Aug 2014 [Ambient and household air pollution: complex triggers of disease]; C. Callahan et al, Epidemiology, Mar 2019 [Extended Mortality Follow-up of a Cohort of Dry Cleaners].

15. C. Woodford, Explainthatstuff.com, 2010 [Clothes dryers]; J. Konradsen et al, J Allergy Clin Immunol, Mar 2015 [Allergy to furry animals: New insights, diagnostic approaches, and challenges]; M. Castro and M. Kraft, Clinical Asthma, Mosby/Elsevier, 2008, p.151; J. Hu et al, Int J Environ Res Public Health, Sep 2017 [Investigation on Indoor Air Pollution and Childhood Allergies in Households in Six Chinese Cities by Subjective Survey and Field Measurements]; E. Bradford, BBC News, 2 Nov 2012 [Indoor laundry drying 'poses a health risk'].

16. J. Allen, Sunday Times, 11 May 2019 [Scented Candles 'more polluting' than busy roads].

17. King Asoka is discussed in R. Maines, Asbestos and Fire: Technological Tradeoffs and the Body at Risk, Rutgers University Press, 2005, p.26; UK NHS, 7 Aug 2017 [Asbestosis]; F. Perraudin, Guardian, 7 Jul 2019 [Britain's death toll from asbestos at crisis level, figures reveal].

18. US National Cancer Institute, 10 Jun 2011 [Formaldehyde and Cancer Risk]; M. Böhm et al, J Hazard Mater, 30 June 2012 [Formaldehyde emission monitoring from a variety of solid wood, plywood, blockboard and flooring products manufactured for building and furnishing materials].

19. J. Vallette et al, Healthy Building Network, Oct 2017 [Eliminating Toxics in Carpet: Lessons for the Future of Recycling]; Abrahm Lustgarten, CNBC, 9 Jul 2018 [How the EPA and the Pentagon downplayed a growing toxic threat];

20. Center for Health, Environment and Justice, 12 Jun 2008 [What's that new shower curtain smell?].

21. A. Pickett and M. Bell, Int J Environ Res Public Health, Dec 2011 [Assessment of Indoor Air Pollution in Homes with Infants].

22. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.65, 74, 269.

23. Ibid.; US EPA, [Introduction to Indoor Air Quality]; K. Sharma et al, Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, Jun 2019 [Detection and identification of dust mite allergens in the air conditioning filters in Chandigarh, India]; T. Jacobson et al, Nat Sustain, Aug 2019 [Direct human health risks of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide].

24. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.65; G. Fuller, The Invisible Killer, Melville-House, 2018, p.151—176; The Danish Ecological Council, Copenhagen, 2016 [Pollution from Residential Burning: Danish experience in an international perspective [PDF]].

p.191: Wood burners are supposed to hurl any air pollution they make outside your home, but that doesn't always happen. When you open the doors to refuel, you let toxic combustion gases escape into your room. In a 2020 study, scientists found that wood burners cause significant increases in indoor air pollution and went so far as to recommend that burners carry a health warning. See D. Carrington, Guardian, 18 Dec 2020 [Wood burners triple harmful indoor air pollution, study finds], quoting from by R. Chakraborty et al, Atmosphere 12/11, 2020 [Indoor Air Pollution from Residential Stoves: Examining the Flooding of Particulate Matter into Homes during Real-World Use]. At the dawn of 2021, Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation called for people to avoid wood burners altogether. See M. Taylor, Guardian, 1 Jan 2021 [Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 17 Dec 2021 [Wood burners cause nearly half of urban air pollution cancer risk—study]. Even the very best wood burners are unimpressive: D. Carrington, Guardian, 8 December 2022 ['Eco' wood burners produce 450 times more pollution than gas heating—report].

25. V. Zagà et al, Pneumologia, Oct—Dec 2008 [Polonium: the radioactive killer from tobacco smoke]; C. DiCarlo, Forensic, 1 Jun 2009 [Polonium-210 and The Assassination of Alexander Litvinenko]; H. Karagueuzian et al, Nicotine Tob Res, Jan 2012 [Cigarette smoke radioactivity and lung cancer risk].

26. R. Doll and A. Hill, BMJ, 30 Sep 1950 [Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung]; BBC News, 22 Jun 2004 [Sir Richard Doll: A life's research]; "Hip" is a specific reference to T. Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism, Univ of Chicago Press, 1997; P. Fischer at al, JAMA, Dec 1991 [Brand logo recognition by children aged 3 to 6 years. Mickey Mouse and Old Joe the Camel.]; Louis V. Genco, Doctors Recommend Smoking Camels, Old-Time Radio, retrieved 2019 [More doctors smoke camels...].

27. G. Invernizzi et al, BMJ Tob Control, Vol 13, 2004 [Particulate matter from tobacco versus diesel car exhaust: an educational perspective].

p.193: For a quick but excellent public-health overview of smoking, I thoroughly recommend "Chapter 11: Why was smoking banned in public places?" by D. Nutt, Drugs Without the Hot Air, UIT Cambridge, 2012, p.192.

28. WHO, 26 Jul 2019 [Tobacco Fact Sheet], Wikipedia, retrieved 2019 [List of Smoking Bans].

29. US National Library of Medicine/Race Betterment Foundation, [The Smoke Nuisance].

30. Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.6 [State Of Global Air 2018. ]; I. Sample, Guardian, 17 Feb 2019 [Cooking Sunday roast causes indoor pollution 'worse than Delhi']; J. Allen, Sunday Times, 11 May 2019 [Scented candles 'more polluting' than busy roads]; G. Invernizzi et al, BMJ Tob Control, Vol 13, 2004 [Particulate matter from tobacco versus diesel car exhaust: an educational perspective]; WHO Ambient Air Pollution Database 2016 (retrieved Sep 2019) [WHO Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database (update 2016)].

31. A. Gates, The New York City, 11 Sep 2006 [Buildings Rise From Rubble While Health Crumbles]; E. Pilkington, Guardian, 11 Nov 2009 [9/11's delayed legacy: cancer for many of the rescue workers]; C. Bankoff, New York, 10 Sep 2016 [What We Know About How 9/11 Has Affected New Yorkers' Health, 15 Years Later]; R. Shulman, Washington Post, 23 April 2008 [Ex-EPA Chief Is Ruled Not Liable for 9/11 Safety Claims]; J. Walter, Guardian, 10 Sep 2016 [Former EPA head admits she was wrong to tell New Yorkers post-9/11 air was safe]; L. Goodman, Newsweek, 7 Sep 2016 [tin9/11's Second Wave: Cancer and Other Diseases Linked to the 2001 Attacks Are Surging]; J. Nadler, Press Release, 21 Apr 2008 [Rep. Nadler: Decision in 9/11 Lawsuit Highlights Need for Federal Action]; N. Hopkins, Guardian, 12 Oct 2018 ['Huge concentrations' of toxins found in Grenfell soil, study finds]; S. Kennedy, Guardian, 29 Mar 2019 [Toxins in the air, toxins in the soil—still ministers won't act on Grenfell]; K. Willsher, Guardian, 10 May 2019 [Notre Dame firefighters should be tested for lead, say campaigners]; A. Chrisafis, Guardian, 9 May 2019 [Notre Dame fire: police say air not toxic despite high lead levels on ground]; E. Peltier et al, New York Times, 16 Sep 2019 [Notre-Dame's Toxic Fallout]; AFP, Guardian, 4 Jun 2019 [Children and pregnant women around Notre Dame warned over lead].

Chapter 8: Killing us softly

1. D. Carrington, Guardian, 11 Jan 2019 [Air pollution 'as bad as smoking in increasing risk of miscarriage']; S. Roberts et al, Psychiatry Res, Feb 2019 [Exploration of NO2 and PM2.5 air pollution and mental health problems using high-resolution data in London-based children from a UK longitudinal cohort study]; R. Peters et al, J Alzheimers Dis, 11 Feb 2019 [Air Pollution and Dementia: A Systematic Review]; M. Taylor, Guardian, 25 Oct 2018 [Patients at thousands of hospitals and GP practices 'breathing toxic air'].

p.199: According to recent research by Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, nearly a third of English hospitals, over a third of GP surgeries in England, and over a quarter of care homes in England are in places where levels of PM2.5 particulates exceed WHO guidelines. See Z. Bond and H. Edwards, Asthma UK/BLF, 2021 [The Invisible Threat: How we can protect people from air pollution and create a fairer, healthier society].

2. E. Kao, South China Morning Post, 2 Oct 2018 [Air pollution is killing 1 million people and costing Chinese economy 267 billion yuan a year]; S. Bernard and A. Kazmin, Financial Times (FT), 11 Dec 2018 [Dirty air: how India became the most polluted country on earth]; J. World, TIME, 9 Sep 2016 [Air Pollution Costs Global Economy Trillions Annually, World Bank Says]; World Bank, Nov 2014, p.20 [Clean and Improved Cooking in Sub-Saharan Africa].

3. WHO Europe/OECD, 2015, p.4 [Economic cost of the health impact of air pollution in Europe]; WHO, 2 May 2018 [Ambient (outdoor) air quality and health].

4. H. Devlin, Guardian, 29 Mar 2017 [Thousands of pollution deaths worldwide linked to western consumers—study]; F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk]; C. Pope and D. Dockery, J Air Waste Manag Assoc, Vol 56, 2006 [Health effects of fine particulate air pollution: lines that connect]; D. Brugge and K. Lane, Conversation, 15 Nov 2018 [Fine particle air pollution is a public health emergency hiding in plain sight].

5. F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk]; S. Farmer et al, Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, 15 Aug 2014 [Ambient and household air pollution: complex triggers of disease]; D. Dockery et al, N Engl J Med, Dec 9 1993 [An association between air pollution and mortality in six U.S. cities]; C. Pope et al, JAMA, Vol 287/11, 2002 [Lung cancer, cardiopulmonary mortality, and long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution]; M. Loxham et al, BMJ 27 Nov 2019 [The health effects of fine particulate air pollution]; Y. Wei, BMJ, 28 Nov 2019 [Short term exposure to fine particulate matter and hospital admission risks and costs in the Medicare population: time stratified, case crossover study].

6. J. Bosson et al, Am J Respir Crit Care Med, 6 May 2019 [Traffic Related Air Pollution, Health and Allergy—the Role of Nitrogen Dioxide]; D. Wooding et al, Am J Respir Crit Care Med, 12 Apr 2019 [Particle Depletion Does Not Remediate Acute Effects of Traffic-Related Air Pollution and Allergen: A Randomized, Double-Blinded Crossover Study].

7. D. Carrington, Guardian, 10 Apr 2019 [Vehicle pollution 'results in 4m child asthma cases a year']; P. Achakulwisut et al, Lancet Planet Health, 10 Apr 2019 [Global, national, and urban burdens of paediatric asthma incidence attributable to ambient NO2 pollution: estimates from global datasets]; N. Davis, Guardian, 8 Aug 2019 [Hitting clean air targets 'could stop 67,000 child asthma cases a year'].

8. Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.1 [State Of Global Air 2018]; M. Bell et al, JAMA, 17 Nov 2004 [Ozone and Short-term Mortality in 95 US Urban Communities, 1987–2000]; WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.316—17; C. Ogden, Air Quality News, 24 Jul 2019 [Climate change will worsen ozone pollution, study finds].

9. E. Wilkins, Q J R Meteorol Soc, April 1954 [Air pollution aspects of the London fog of December 1952]; E. Wilkins, J R Sanitary Inst, Jan 1954, [Air pollution and the London Fog of 1952].

p.204: I used to publish an edited version of the Wilkins chart on this page, extracted from the 1953 Committee on Air Pollution: Interim Report. Someone has now helpfully uploaded my chart to Wikimedia Commons (see 1952 Great London Smog mortality), so I'm no longer including it here.

10. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.395—420; M. Amdur, Environ Health Perspect, May 1989 [Health effects of air pollutants: sulfuric acid, the old and the new].

11. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.21, 198; K. McClatchey (ed), Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2002, p806.

12. P. Wolkoff et al, Toxicol Lett, 7 Mar 2012 [Airway effects of repeated exposures to ozone-initiated limonene oxidation products as model of indoor air mixtures.]; US EPA, 1 Sep 1994 [Limonene]; J. Wakefield, Health Protection Agency, 2007 [Napthalene: Toxicological Overview]; US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), 24 Jun 2019 [Benzene]; EEA, 15 Apr 2013 [NEWS Every breath we take—Signals 2013 focuses on air quality in Europe]; W. Ott and J. Roberts, Sci Am, Feb 1998, pp.86—91 [Everyday Exposure to Toxic Pollutants].

p.206: Back in 2016, Ally Lewis of York University showed the BBC how limonene is far from harmless: it soon spawns much more harmful formaldehyde. BBC News, 15 Jan 2016 [Is there a danger from scented products?].

13. WHO, 2 May 2018 [9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air, but more countries are taking action]; Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.1 [State Of Global Air 2018. ].

p.207: For an interesting note about male fertility, see S. Quaglia, Guardian, 17 Feb 2022 [Air pollution may affect sperm quality, says study]. Also interesting: A. Bawden, Guardian, 15 Mar 2022 [Air pollution linked to higher risk of autoimmune diseases].

14. J. Bosson et al, Am J Respir Crit Care Med, 6 May 2019 [Traffic Related Air Pollution, Health and Allergy—the Role of Nitrogen Dioxide]; World Bank, Nov 2014, p.20 [Clean and Improved Cooking in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Landscape Report]; US CDC, 19 Jul 2018 [What Are the Risk Factors for Lung Cancer?].

15. ALA, 20 Jul 2017 [How Your Lungs Get the Job Done]; 100 trillion trillion is a guesstimate based on the number of litres we breathe multiplied by the rough number of molecules in a litre.

16. S. Gordon et al, Lancet Respir Med, Oct 2014 [Respiratory risks from household air pollution in low and middle income countries]; WHO, 8 May 2018 [Household air pollution and health]; WHO, 12 Sep 2018 [Cancer].

17. WHO, 2 Aug 2019 [Pneumonia]; WHO, 8 May 2018 [Household air pollution and health]; A. Yura et al, Nihon Koshu Eisei Zasshi, Aug 2005 [Indoor air pollution in newly built or renovated elementary schools and its effects on health in children].

18. W. Gauderman et al, Am J Respir Crit Care Med, Oct 2000 [Association between air pollution and lung function growth in southern California children]; S. Farmer et al, Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, 15 Aug 2014 [Ambient and household air pollution: complex triggers of disease]; BBC News, 2 May 2019 [Ella Kissi-Debrah: New inquest into girl's 'pollution' death]; S. Laville, Guardian, 2 May 2019 [Ella Kissi-Debrah: new inquest granted into 'air pollution' death]; S. Laville, Guardian, 17 Jun 2021 [UK refuses to commit to immediate lowering of air pollution limits]; P. Bharadwaj et al, Am J Respir Crit Care Med, 15 Dec 2016 [Early-Life Exposure to the Great Smog of 1952 and the Development of Asthma].

p.210: "2019" refers to when Ella's family was granted an application for a new inquest into Ella's death. Ella died in 2013 and the milestone inquest into her death took place in 2020. Her family now campaign (brilliantly) through The Ella Roberta Family Foundation (also on Twitter.]

p.211: During an inquest in December 2020, a British coroner made legal history by ruling that "excessive air pollution" was one of the causes of Ella's death. C. Marshall, BBC, 29 November 2020 [Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah: 'Did air pollution kill my daughter?']; C. Marshall, BBC, 3 July 2018 [Illegal levels of air pollution linked to child's death]; S. Laville, Guardian, 16 December 2010 [Air pollution caused girl's death, coroner rules in landmark case].

p.211: A recent report from Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation summarizes the danger air presents to people with lung conditions. See Z. Bond and H. Edwards, Asthma UK/BLF, 2021 [The Invisible Threat: How we can protect people from air pollution and create a fairer, healthier society].

p.211: Air pollution is a likely cause of the most severe form of asthma (non-Th2). See P. Neill, Air Quality News, 14 Apr 2021 [Air pollution is a likely cause of the most severe form of asthma].

19. F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk]; WHO, 8 May 2018 [Household air pollution and health]; S. Farmer et al, Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, 15 Aug 2014 [Ambient and household air pollution: complex triggers of disease]; F. Everson et al, Int J Environ Res Public Health, 28 Jun 2019 [Personal NO2 and Volatile Organic Compounds Exposure Levels are Associated with Markers of Cardiovascular Risk in Women in the Cape Town Region of South Africa.]; M. Link et al, J Am Coll Cardiol, 27 Aug 2013 [Acute Exposure to Air Pollution Triggers Atrial Fibrillation].

p.211: On high-pollution days, a study by King's College, London found there are significantly more admissions to hospital for out-of-hospital heart attacks, asthma attacks, and strokes. H. Walton, King's College, 21 Oct 2019 [Higher air pollution days trigger cardiac arrests and hospitalisations].

20. D. Carrington, Guardian, 12 Jul 2019 [Billions of air pollution particles found in hearts of city dwellers]; L. Calderón-Garcidueñas et al, Environ Res, Sep 2019 [Combustion- and friction-derived magnetic air pollution nanoparticles in human hearts].

21. WHO, 8 May 2018 [Billions of air pollution particles found in hearts of city dwellers]; World Stroke Campaign, 2019 [Facts and Figures]; R. Maheswaran et al, Stroke, May 2010 [Impact of outdoor air pollution on survival after stroke: population-based cohort study].

22. C. Pope et al, JAMA, Vol 287/11, 2002 [Lung cancer, cardiopulmonary mortality, and long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution].

23. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.125; Cancer Research UK, retrieved 2019 [Breast cancer risk]; Z. Andersen et al, Environ Health Perspect, Vol 125/10, 2017 [Long-Term Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution and Incidence of Postmenopausal Breast Cancer in 15 European Cohorts within the ESCAPE Project]; C. Yang et al, Asia Pac J Public Health, Jul 2016 [Passive Smoking and Risk of Colorectal Cancer: A Meta-analysis of Observational Studies].

p.213: A 2022 study sheds light on why non-smokers get cancer. H. Devlin, Guardian, 10 Sep 2022 [Cancer breakthrough is a 'wake-up' call on danger of air pollution]. It's reported by PA Media, Guardian, 27 July 2022 [Air pollution is 'likely' to raise dementia risk, find UK government experts] and the original study is available from COMEAP's website [Air pollution: cognitive decline and dementia].

24. D.Carrington and L. Kuo, Guardian, 27 Aug 2018 [Air pollution causes 'huge' reduction in intelligence, study reveals]; M. Ives, New York Times, 29 Aug 2018 [Pollution May Dim Thinking Skills, Study in China Suggests]; Xin Zhang et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci, 11 Sep 2018 [The impact of exposure to air pollution on cognitive performance]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 5 Sep 2016 [Toxic air pollution particles found in human brains]; B. Maher et al, Proc Natl Acad Sci, 27 Sep 2016 [Magnetite pollution nanoparticles in the human brain]; S. Weichenthal et al, Epidemiology, 6 Nov 2019 [Within-City Spatial Variations in Ambient Ultrafine Particle Concentrations and Incident Brain Tumors in Adults]; X. Gao et al, Nature, 3 May 2021 [Short-term air pollution, cognitive performance and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use in the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study], which is also described in I. Sample, Guardian, 3 May 2021 [Air pollution spikes may impair older men's thinking, study finds].

p.214: A 2022 report by COMEAP reviewed 70 epidemiological studies of air pollution and concluded it's likely to accelerate cognitive decline and dementia in older adults. It's reported by PA Media, Guardian, 27 July 2022 [Air pollution is 'likely' to raise dementia risk, find UK government experts] and the original study is available from COMEAP's website [Air pollution: cognitive decline and dementia].

25. J. Newbury et al, JAMA Psychiatry, 1 Jun 2019 [Association of Air Pollution Exposure With Psychotic Experiences During Adolescence]; S. Roberts et al, Psychiatry Res, Feb 2019 [Exploration of NO2 and PM2.5 air pollution and mental health problems using high-resolution data in London-based children from a UK longitudinal cohort study]; N. Davies, Guardian, 20 Aug 2019 [Growing up in air-polluted areas linked to mental health issues]; D. Campbell, Guardian, 28 Apr 2021 [Study links childhood air pollution exposure to poorer mental health]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 27 August 2021 [Air pollution linked to more severe mental illness—study].

p.214: How much pollution would you need to breathe to make a significant difference to your mental health? "Quite a lot," you might suppose—but the answer seems to be "not very much at all." A 2020 study by scientists at King's College London seemed to find a kind of "leverage": relatively modest increases in NO2 and particulates were linked to much bigger increases in the risk of depression and anxiety. The study is reported by D. Carrington, Guardian, 24 Oct 2020 [Small increases in air pollution linked to rise in depression, finds study] and the original research is I. Bakolis et al, 2020, Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol [Mental health consequences of urban air pollution: prospective population-based longitudinal survey].

26. J. Lu et al, Psychol Sci, Mar 2018 [Polluted Morality: Air Pollution Predicts Criminal Activity and Unethical Behavior].

27. UNICEF, December 2017 [Danger in the air: How air pollution can affect brain development in young children [PDF]]; J. Burns et al, Cochrane Database, 2014 [Interventions to reduce ambient particulate matter air pollution and their effect on health]; F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk]; E. Adaji et al, Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, Vol 26/4, 2019 [Understanding the effect of indoor air pollution on pneumonia in children under 5 in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review of evidence]; R. Walton et al, Environ Int, Nov 2016 [Air pollution, ethnicity and telomere length in east London schoolchildren]; R. Peters et al, J Alzheimers Dis, 11 Feb 2019 [Air Pollution and Dementia: A Systematic Review]; B. Zhao et al, Cardiovasc Diagn Ther, Aug 2018 [Air pollution and telomere length: a systematic review of 12,058 subjects].

28. D. Schraufnagel, CHEST, Feb 2019 [Air Pollution and Noncommunicable Diseases]; World Health Organization (WHO), 2 May 2018 [9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air, but more countries are taking action].

p.217: D. Carrington, Guardian, 17 Feb 2021 [Air pollution significantly raises risk of infertility, study finds].

29. S. Farmer et al, Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, 15 Aug 2014 [Ambient and household air pollution: complex triggers of disease]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 11 Jan 2019 [Air pollution 'as bad as smoking in increasing risk of miscarriage']; R. Smith et al, BMJ, Vol 359, 2017 [Impact of London's road traffic air and noise pollution on birth weight: retrospective population based cohort study]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 16 Sep 2018 [Air pollution particles found in mothers' placentas]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 17 Sep 2019 [Air pollution particles found on foetal side of placentas—study]; F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk]; A. Wdowiak et al, Int J Occup Med Environ Health, 14 Jun 2019 [Air pollution and semen parameters in men seeking fertility treatment for the first time].

30. S. Edwards et al, Environ Health Perspect, Sep 2010 [Prenatal exposure to airborne polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and children's intelligence at 5 years of age in a prospective cohort study in Poland]; F. Perera et al, Pediatrics, Aug 2009 [Prenatal airborne polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon exposure and child IQ at age 5 years]; UNICEF Press Release, 6 Dec 2017 [17 million babies under the age of 1 breathe toxic air, majority live in South Asia]; G. Solomon et al, NRDC/Coalition for Clean Air, 2001 [No Breathing In The Aisles: Diesel Exhaust Inside School Buses]; NRDC, 15 Mar 2016 [The Long Road to Safer School Buses]; F. Harvey, Guardian, 21 Oct 2020 [Polluted air killing half a million babies a year across globe].

31. UNICEF, December 2017 [Danger in the Air: How air pollution can affect brain development in young children]; M. Taylor, Guardian, 29 Oct 2018 [90% of world's children are breathing toxic air, WHO study finds]; WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.316—317; Sustrans, 25 Mar 2019 [Nearly two thirds of UK teachers want car-free roads outside schools].

32. Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.10 [State Of Global Air 2018]; R. Peters et al, J Alzheimers Dis, 11 Feb 2019 [Air Pollution and Dementia: A Systematic Review]; BMJ, 2017 [Air pollution may be linked to heightened dementia risk]; King's College London News, 19 Sep 2018 [London-based study suggests air pollution linked to much greater risk of dementia].

33. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.121, 200, 373; WHO, Burning Opportunity: Clean Household Energy for Health, Sustainable Development, and Wellbeing of Women and Children, 2016.

34. J. Watts, Guardian, 23 Mar 2020 [Coronavirus pandemic leading to huge drop in air pollution]; G. da Silva, Univ of Melbourne [COVID-19 DROP IN POLLUTION TO BE SHORT-LIVED]; J. Davidson, Ecowatch, 2 Apr 2020 [India's Air Pollution Plummets in COVID-19 Lockdown]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 7 Jun 2020 [Omission of air pollution from report on Covid-19 and race 'astonishing']; D. Carrington, Guardian, 13 Jul 2020 ['Compelling' evidence air pollution worsens coronavirus—study]; L. Friedman, New York Times, 7 Apr 2020 [New Research Links Air Pollution to Higher Coronavirus Death Rates]; X. Wu et al, Science Advances, Vol 6/45, 2020 [ Air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States: Strengths and limitations of an ecological regression analysis]; A. Mandavilli, New York Times, 11 Aug 2020 ['A Smoking Gun': Infectious Coronavirus Retrieved From Hospital Air]; Plume Labs Blog, 13 May 2020 [Is air pollution going down because of COVID-19 lock-down measures?]; M. Cole et al, Conversation, 13 Jul 2020 [Air pollution exposure linked to higher COVID-19 cases and deaths—new study]; M. Nichols, Air Quality News, 13 Nov 2020 [What the UK's first lockdown taught us about air quality].

p.222: Since the book went to press, evidence has continued to mount of an "extremely likely" connection between COVID-19 and dirty air. In November 2020, for example, The Guardian's Damian Carrington reported that surprisingly small increases in air pollution were connected to an 11 per cent increase in COVID-19 deaths, while some 15 percent of all deaths from the virus appear to be linked to air pollution. See D. Carrington, Guardian, 5 Nov 2020 [Tiny air pollution rise linked to 11% more COVID-19 deaths—study]. In August 2021, a paper in Science Advances suggested that wildfire smoke in the American West had contributed to 20,000 COVID infections and 750 deaths during 2020. See W. Choi-Schagrin, New York Times, 13 Aug 2021 [In the West, a Connection Between Covid and Wildfires]. Another relevant piece is D. Carrington, Guardian, 13 Aug 2020 [Exposure to air pollution may increase risk of Covid death, major study says].

Given this connection, it should worry us that, in many places, air pollution is now worse than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the UK, for example, a December 2020 study by the Centre for Cities concluded that: "Air pollution in cities fell over the course of the first national lockdown, but now exceeds pre-pandemic levels in 80 per cent of places studied." See V. Quinio and K. Enenkel, Centre for Cities, 10 Dec 2020 [How have the Covid pandemic and lockdown affected air quality in cities?].

35. World Bank, 21 Dec 2017 [Putting Clean Cooking on the Front Burner]; K. Altieri et al, Sci Total Environ, 20 Sep 2019 [Public health benefits of reducing exposure to ambient fine particulate matter in South Africa]; F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk]; EEA, 15 Apr 2013 [Every breath we take]; H. Khreis et al, Eur Respir J, 8 July 2019 [Outdoor Air Pollution and the Burden of Childhood Asthma across Europe]; Y. Zhang et al, Atmos Chem Phys, Vol 18, 2018 [Long-term trends in the ambient PM2.5- and O3-related mortality burdens in the United States under emission reductions from 1990 to 2010]; K. Abe et al, Int J Environ Res Public Health, 11 Jul 2016 [Health Impact Assessment of Air Pollution in São Paulo, Brazil.]; S. Jones et al, J Epidemiol Community Health, Jul 2017 [Twenty miles per hour speed limits: a sustainable solution to public health problems in Wales].

Chapter 9: Down to Earth

1. R. Ehrenberg, Nature, 2 Sep 2015 [Global count reaches 3 trillion trees].

2. N. Davis, Guardian, 5 Jul 2018 [Baltic Sea oxygen levels at '1,500-year low due to human activity']; D. Breitburg et al, Science, 5 Jan 2018 [Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters]; US EPA, retrieved 2019 [What is Acid Rain?].

3. H. Thoreau, Walden or Life in the Woods, Heritage Press, 1939, p.346; W. Stevens, New York Times, 8 Oct 1991 [History of Walden Emerges from its Mud]; J. Stager et al, PLOS One, 4 Apr 2018 [Climate variability and cultural eutrophication at Walden Pond (Massachusetts, USA) during the last 1800 years]; Y. Tayag, Inverse.com, 4 Apr 2018 [Thoreau's Beloved Walden Pond is Being Destroyed by Urinating Swimmers].

4. US EPA, retrieved 2019 [What is acid rain?].

5. R. Smith, Longmans, 1872, p.225 [Air and Rain: The Beginnings of a Chemical Climatology].

6. R. Turner Holmes and G. Likens, Hubbard Brook: The Story of a Forest Ecosystem, Yale Univ Press, 2016, p116ff.

7. B. Ottar, Water Air Soil Pollut, Jun 1976 [Organization of long range transport of air pollution monitoring in Europe]; S. Sandøy and A. Romundstad, Water Air Soil Pollut, Dec 1995, p.997—1002 [Liming of acidified lakes and rivers in Norway]; Norwegian Environment Agency, 9 Apr 2018 [Acid rain]; P. Brown, Guardian, 13 May 2019 [Weatherwatch: how UK vehicle emissions affect Norway's fish]; P. Wynn Davies, Independent, 18 Aug 1993 [Acid exchanges in whaling row]; H. Klein et al, International Tech Meeting on Air Pollution Modelling and its Application, 2016 [Worst Case Meteorological Scenario for Norway in Case of an Accident in Sellafield Nuclear Site]; H. Borchgrevink, Science Norway, 15 May 2014 [Acid rain still affects water quality].

8. World Bank/Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), 2016 [The Cost of Air Pollution]; B. Webster, New York Times, 6 Nov 1979 [Acid Rain: An Increasing Threat]; US EPA, 2019 [Acidity in Lakes and Streams].

9. N. Bhatti et al, Environmental Management, July 1992 [Acid rain in Asia]; World Bank, Cost Of Pollution In China, 2007; V. Bhaskar and P. Rao, J Atmos Chem, Vol 74/1 2017 [Annual and decadal variation in chemical composition of rain water at all the ten GAW stations in India]; NASA Earth Observatory retrieved 2019 [Sulfur Dioxide Emissions Fall in China, Rise in India]; Greenpeace India, 19 Aug 2019 [India largest SO2 emitter in the World, says Greenpeace's new analysis]; C. Li et al, Nature Scientific Reports, Vol 7, 2017 [India Is Overtaking China as the World's Largest Emitter of Anthropogenic Sulfur Dioxide]; H. Fountain and J. Schwartz, New York Times, 2 May 2018 [Have We Passed the Acid Test?]; World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, Oxford, 1987, p.180.

10. Q. Zhen et al, JGR Atmospheres, 6 Jul 2019 [SO2 Emission Estimates Using OMI SO2 Retrievals for 2005–2017].

11. T. Shibamoto et al, Rev Environ Contam Toxicol, Vol 190, 2007 [Dioxin formation from waste incineration]; J. Dearden, UK Without Incineration Network [Dioxins and other harmful incinerator emissions]; R. Mason et al, Environ Res, Nov 2012 [Mercury Biogeochemical Cycling in the Ocean and Policy Implications]; R. P. Mason et al, Geochim Cosmochim Acta, Volume 58/15, 1994 [The biogeochemical cycling of elemental mercury: Anthropogenic influences]; J. Doward, Observer, 14 May 2017 [Race is on to rid UK waters of PCBs after toxic pollutants found in killer whale].

12. US EPA Office of Water [What is atmospheric deposition and how does it occur?]; R. Mason et al, Environ Sci Technol, 27 Feb 1997 [Mercury in Lake Michigan]; New Zealand Environment Ministry, Mercury Inventory for New Zealand: 2008 [Ch2: Mercury in the Environment].

13. US National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, 2016 [Mercury Hot Spots and Bioaccumulation in Fish ]; J. Shannon and E. Voldner, Atmos Environ, Vol 29/14, 1995 [Modeling atmospheric concentrations of mercury and deposition to the great lakes]; K. Vergel et al, Bull Environ Contam Toxicol, 2 Jul 2019 [Heavy Metal Atmospheric Deposition Study in Moscow Region, Russia]; M. Onakpa et al, Ann Global Health, 31 Aug 2018 [A Review of Heavy Metal Contamination of Food Crops in Nigeria]; K. Noh et al, Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2 Jul 2019 [Particulate matter in the cultivation area may contaminate leafy vegetables with heavy metals above safe levels in Korea]; P. Kapusta et al, Chemosphere, Sep 2019 [Long-term moss monitoring of atmospheric deposition near a large steelworks reveals the growing importance of local non-industrial sources of pollution]; A. Mashau et al, Int J Environ Res Public Health, 13 Dec 2018 [Evaluation of the Bioavailability and Translocation of Selected Heavy Metals by Brassica juncea and Spinacea oleracea L for a South African Power Utility Coal Fly Ash]; Y. Hong et al, J Prev Med Public Health, Nov 2012 Nov [Methylmercury Exposure and Health Effects].

14. WHO Air Quality Guidelines: Global Update, 2006, p.92.

15. WHO Air Quality Guidelines for Europe, 2000; M. Klein et al, Sci Total Environ, 29 May 2019 [Microplastic abundance in atmospheric deposition within the Metropolitan area of Hamburg, Germany]; M. Singh, Guardian, 13 Aug 2019 [It's raining plastic: microscopic fibers fall from the sky in Rocky Mountains]; M. Bergmann et al, Science Advances, 14 Aug 2019 [White and wonderful? Microplastics prevail in snow from the Alps to the Arctic]; D. Carrington, Guardian, 14 Aug 2019 [Microplastics 'significantly contaminating the air']; D. Carrington, Guardian, 27 Dec 2019 [Revealed: microplastic pollution is raining down on city dwellers].

16. C. Woodford, Explainthatstuff.com, 2006 [Water Pollution]; EEA, 29 Nov 2018 [Eutrophication of terrestrial ecosystems due to air pollution]; NOAA News Release, 2 Aug 2017 [Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' is the largest ever measured].

17. S. Fields, Environ Health Perspect, Jul 2004 [Global Nitrogen: Cycling out of Control].

18. H. van Grinsven et al, Environ Health, Vol 5/26, 2006 [Does the evidence about health risks associated with nitrate ingestion warrant an increase of the nitrate standard for drinking water?]; Science Daily, 16 May 2016 [Farms a major source of air pollution, study finds]; R. Miller et al. Geophys Res Lett, May 2016 [Significant Atmospheric Aerosol Pollution caused by World Food Cultivation]; G. Park et al, Sci Total Environ, 1 Sep 2019 [Atmospheric deposition of anthropogenic inorganic nitrogen in airborne particles and precipitation in the East Sea in the northwestern Pacific Ocean].

19. Z. Shi, WEF, 4 Nov 2014 [Why air pollution reduces crop yields]; H. Griffiths, Ministry of Agriculture Ontario, June 2003 [Factsheet Order No. 85-002: Effects of Air Pollution on Agricultural Crops].

20. H. Griffiths, Ministry of Agriculture Ontario, June 2003 [Factsheet Order No. 85-002: Effects of Air Pollution on Agricultural Crops]; London Free Press, 13 Jun 2016 [Farmers now have to add sulphur to their soil because it's not falling from the sky]; J. Gregg et al, Nature, 10 Jul 2003 [Urbanization effects on tree growth in the vicinity of New York City].

21. R. Allain, Wired, 24 Dec 2012 [How many leaves are on this tree?]; USDA Science Perspectives, Winter 2010 [An Emerging Triad: Air Pollution, Beetles, and Wildfire].

22. R. Gast, Adirondack Almanack, 29 Aug 2017 [Acid Rain Still Impacting Adirondack Lakes and Forests]; Adirondack Council Press Release, 2 Oct 2019 [Midwest Pollution Up, Adirondack Clouds Dirtier Following Trump Air Pollution Rollbacks].

23. Ibid.

24. H. Griffiths, Ministry of Agriculture Ontario, June 2003 [Factsheet Order No. 85-002: Effects of Air Pollution on Agricultural Cropss]; "Chapter 8: Effects on Vegetation and Animals" in in R. Boubel et al (eds), Fundamentals of Air Pollution, Academic Press, 1994, p.116; J. Nigel et al In R. Ambasht and N. Ambasht (eds), Modern Trends in Applied Terrestrial Ecology, Springer 2002.

25. J. Evelyn, Godbid, 1661 [Fumifugium].

26. Z. Shi, WEF, 4 Nov 2014 [Why air pollution reduces crop yields]; S. Das, DownToEarth, 17 Sep 2015 [Air pollution damages crops more than climate change], Jennifer Burney and V. Ramanathan, Proc Natl Acad Sci, 3 Nov 2014 [Recent climate and air pollution impacts on Indian agriculture].

27. Z. Shi, WEF, 4 Nov 2014 [Why air pollution reduces crop yields]; World Bank, Cost Of Pollution In China, 2007; China Power, 25 Jan 2017 [How is China feeding its population of 1.4 billion?]; Bloomberg News, 22 May 2017 [Farming the World: China's Epic Race to Avoid a Food Crisis]; P. Bailey, Univ of California, Davis, 14 Mar 2017 [China's Shrinking Rice Yield].

28. "Chapter 8: Effects on Vegetation and Animals" in R. Boubel et al (eds), Fundamentals of Air Pollution, Academic Press, 1994, p.116; R. Rowe et al, J Air Pollut Control Assoc, Vol 35/7, 1985 [Economic Assessment of the Effects of Air Pollution on Agricultural Crops in the San Joaquin Valley]; US EPA Publication: EPA-451/K-03-001 J, 2003/2014 [Good Up High Bad Nearby - What is Ozone?]; J. Brown, Sustainable Food Trust, 3 May 2019 [The impact of air pollution on crops]; Center for Ecology and Hydrology, Air Pollution and Vegetation, 2011; UN Economic Commission for Europe, Air pollution and food production, retrieved 2019 [3.2.2 Ozone Impacts on Food Security]; A. Haagen-Smit, Engineering & Science, Vol XIV, Dec 1950, p.7. [The Air Pollution Problem in Los Angeles [PDF]]

29. D. Velissariou in J. Fuhrer and B. Achennann (eds), Critical Levels for Ozone, Swiss Agency for Environment, Forest and Landscape, 1999, pp. 253-256; Univ of York News Release, 2 Feb 2012 [Food crops damaged by pollution crossing continents]; J. Brown, Sustainable Food Trust, 3 May 2019 [The impact of air pollution on crops].

30. M. Rubin, Bull Hist Chem, Vol 27/2, 2002, p.81 [The History of Ozone]; Norwegian Environment Agency, 20 Sep 2010 [Ground-level ozone]; W. Stockwell et al in Forest Decline and Ozone by Heinrich Sandermann (ed), Springer, 1997 [Ozone Formation, Destruction and Exposure in Europe and the United States].

31. G. Ferguson, Los Angeles Times, 19 Dec 2017 [How local farmers are coping with the devastating Thomas fire]; Univ of Exeter News Release, 21 Dec 2018 [Pollutants from wild fires affect crop and vegetation growth hundreds of kilometres from impact zone, research shows].

32. P. Bailey, Univ of California, Davis, 14 Mar 2017 [Surface Ozone Pollution Damages Rice Production in China: Yield Losses Could Endanger Global Food Security]; T. Wang et al, Sci Total Environ, 1 Jan 2017 [Ozone pollution in China: A review of concentrations, meteorological influences, chemical precursors, and effects].

33. S. Avnery et al, Atmos Environ, Vol 45, 2011 [Global crop yield reductions due to surface ozone exposure: 1. Year 2000 crop production losses and economic damage]; UN press release, 15 Jul 2019 [Over 820 million people suffering from hunger; new UN report reveals stubborn realities of 'immense' global challenge].

Chapter 10: Scrubbing up

1. C. Jones, Phys.org, 30 Sep 30 [Beijing's latest answer to pollution: the Smog Free Tower]; M. Cerini, CNN, 30 Sep 2016 [Could this smog-eating tower solve China's pollution problem?]; S. Chen, South China Morning Post, 16 Jan 2018 [China builds 'world's biggest air purifier' (and it seems to be working)]. How many football stadiums would fill Beijing? The area of Bejing is about 16,400 sq.km (from Wikipedia) = 1.64 million hectares. A typical football stadium is 13 acres = 5.23 hectares. So it would take 300,000 stadia to cover the whole of Beijing.

2. D. Carrington, Guardian, 30 Aug 2016 [Emissions from new diesel cars are still far higher than official limit]; EEA, Air Quality in Europe, 2016, p.45 [Figure 6.3 Comparison of NOX standards and emissions for different Euro classes].

3. C. Woodford, , Explainthatstuff.com, 2007/2018 [Catalytic converters].

4. V. Sumantran et al, Guardian, 16 Oct 2017 [Our cities need fewer cars, not cleaner cars].

5. M. Taylor, Guardian, 27 Sep 2018 [UK's first air-filtering bus launches in Southampton]; StageCoach [UK Bus Industry FAQ]; G. Paton, Times, 18 Apr 2019 [London mayor Sadiq Khan 'slow' to replace dirty buses]; Statista, 2019 [Average age of local service bus fleet in England from 2005/06 to 2017/18]; P. Crerar, Standard, 24 Jul 2015 [Faulty new Routemasters 'emit 74% more harmful particles than old buses']; UK House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee, Sixth Report of Session 2014—15 [Air Quality Inquiry];

p.249: In the UK, electric buses (including their charging points) cost roughly £215,000, if we work on the assumption that Manchester was given £15 million to buy 70 plug-in vehicles, as reported by the Manchester Evening News in February 2019. So when you hear about big government transport projects spending multiple billions, each one of those billions could pay for about 5000 "cleaner" buses.

6. T. Phillips, Guardian, 26 May 2016 [China unveils 'straddling bus' design to beat traffic jams]; J. Fullerton, Guardian, 7 Jul 2017 [Failure of China's 'straddling bus' shows there's no magic bullet for traffic woes]; BBC News, 4 Jul 2017 [Arrests over China 'straddling bus' project]; G. Huang, Global Times, 7 Aug 2016 [New doubts arise on Batie bus financing].

7. R. Chrystal, BBC News, 18 Nov 2011 [Boris Johnson sticks by gluing pollution to roads]; A. Vaughan, Guardian, 13 Feb 2013 [Boris Johnson's sticky pollution solution shown to be a £1.4m failure].

8. Agenda.ge, 18 Oct 2018 [Tbilisi City hall plants 10 thousand trees for autumn green campaign]; Tirana Times, 12 Mar 2019 [A mission to expand green areas in Albania]; Mongolian News Agency, 12 Oct 2018 [Mongolians to plant more trees]; BBC News, 29 Jul 2019 [Ethiopia 'breaks' tree-planting record to tackle climate change]; BBC News, 11 Aug 2019 [Deforestation: Did Ethiopia plant 350 million trees in a day?]; Daily Sabah, 30 Jul 2019 [Ethiopians pitch in to realize tree-planting drive].

9. Xinhua, 25 Jun 2018 [Indians protest against felling of over 15,000 trees in capital]; The Wire, 5 Oct 2019 [Aarey: Protests Intensify as MMRCL Hacks Trees, Several Activists Arrested]; O. Wainwright, Guardian, 16 Apr 2015 [The great garden swindle: how developers are hiding behind shrubbery].

10. AgroSci News Release, 3 Nov 2016 [AgroSci's Aerogation™ Green Wall Technology Issued Patent by U.S. Patent Office]; AgroSci, retrieved 2019 [Green Walls Portfolio].

11. CityTree by Matt Brown, published on Flickr in 2018 under a Creative Commons BY 2.0 licence. Matt has also very kindly granted explicit permission for his photo to be used in this book.

12. C. Woodford, Explainthatstuff.com, 2010/17 [Self-cleaning windows].

13. Milano - Palazzo Italia / Italian Pavilion by Fred Romero, published on Flickr in 2015 under a Creative Commons BY 2.0 licence. Fred has also very kindly granted explicit permission for his photo to be used in this book.

14. J. Temperton, Wired, 24 Mar 2015 ['Pollution eating' bridge to clean up Barcelona]; Centre for Public Impact, 3 Mar 2016 [Case Study: The eco-friendly façade of the Manuel Gea González Hospital tower in Mexico City]; M. Novozhilova, Inhabit.com, 16 Jun 2015 [The spectacular Palazzo Italia building in Milan is a smog-eating machine]; To give you an idea of the traffic that hospitals can generate, a typical hospital in the UK, Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, has 8500 staff, 2675 staff car parking spaces, and 1137 visitor spaces, with a further 150 allocated spaces for staff at another location nearby. Birmingham Mail, 16 May 2015 [Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham facing car parking crisis]; World Bank, 1 Jan 2010 [Population of vehicles in Mexico City's metropolitan area and their emission levels (English)].

15. Eindhoven Univ of Technology, ScienceDaily, 8 Jul 2010 [Road surface purifies air by removing nitrogen oxides, researchers in the Netherlands find]; Ayres Associates, 25 May 2016 [Asphalt vs. Concrete: Not a Black and White Choice].

16. S. Sheehan, Autocar, 3 Aug 2017 [Air pollution-absorbing motorway canopies under consideration]; M. Burgess, Wired UK, 3 Aug 2017 [The UK's motorways could get tunnels that absorb air pollution]; UK Dept for Transport Statistical Release, 5 Jul 2018 [Road Lengths in Great Britain 2017]; J. Watts, Guardian, 25 Feb 2019 [Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth].

17. M. Burgess, Wired UK, 3 Aug 2017 [The UK's motorways could get tunnels that absorb air pollution]; M. Holder, Air Quality News, 15 Apr 2016 [Paint designed to 'trap' pollution dismissed by experts]; GreenerBuilding, 11 Mar 2004 [EU Smart Construction Materials to Absorb Pollution].

18. Chemical Heritage Foundation, archived 4 June 2016 [Frederick Gardner Cottrell]; F. Cottrell, US Patent 895,729, 11 Aug 1908 [US Patent 895,729: Art of separating suspended particles from gaseous bodies].

19. C. Woodford, Explainthatstuff.com, 2007/2017 [Vacuum Cleaners]; J. Dyson, US Patent 4,373,228A, 15 Feb 1983 [US Patent 4,373,228: Vacuum cleaning appliances]; B. Kent, US Patent 1,220,641A, 3 Feb 1917 [US Patent 1,220,641A: Vacuum-creating and dust-separating machine].

20. AFP, Guardian, 26 Oct 2016 [Dutch unveil giant outside vacuum cleaner to filter dirty air]; Purevento, 2019 [The Purevento city air cleaner]; J. Cheung, Arup, 2 Jul 2015 [Outdoor air purification system debuts in Beijing]; AFP, Yahoo News, 15 Aug 2019 [Mexican start-up fights air pollution with artificial trees]; A. Lewis, Conversation, 25 Jan 2018 [Beware China's 'anti-smog tower' and other plans to pull pollution from the air].

21. Dyson Technology Ltd, GB Patent GB201811994D0, 23 Jul 2018 [A wearable air purifier]; C. Hsu and C. Lin, Taiwan Patent TWI589331B, 25 Aug 2016 [Wearable device with air filtering unit].

p.260: Since I wrote this section, some further details have come to my attention in the shape of Dyson's International Patent WO2020021230A1: A Wearable Air Purifier, 30 January 2020, which describes a gadget shaped like a pair of headphones "that can be worn by the user but that do not require the user's mouth and nose to be covered." The device uses "both a particulate filter element... and a chemical filter element" and the references to "highly efficient particulate filters" and "pleated particulate filter media" suggest HEPA filters similar to those in its vacuum cleaners (though the word "HEPA" isn't used anywhere in the patent). No information is given about the device's air-cleaning performance, though, like Dyson's other products, it sounds like it's designed to move huge volumes of air very quickly.

22. WHO, Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality: Household Fuel Combustion, 2014; World Bank, Nov 2014 [Clean and Improved Cooking in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Landscape Report. Report 98664].

23. US Dept of State, 21 Sep 2010 [Remarks on Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves at the Clinton Global Initiative]; Washington Post, 29 Oct 2015 [These cheap, clean stoves were supposed to save millions of lives. What happened?].

24. E. Hoffner, Guardian, 30 Oct 2015 [Can solar cookstoves help reduce greenhouse emissions in developing countries?]; M. De Fazio, Humanosphere, 30 Dec 2016 [Are 'clean' solid-fuel cookstoves the solution or part of the problem?]; A. Revkin, New York Times, 23 Sep 2010 [A Path to Cleaner Cooking in Africa]; "Stove stacking was found to be quite prevalent in most regions" according to Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves/Practical Action, 2015 [Gender and Livelihoods: Impacts of Clean Cookstoves in South Asia]; Stove stacking is described as "near universal" by J. Rosenthal et al, Environ Health Perspect, Jan 2017 [Implementation Science to Accelerate Clean Cooking for Public Health].

25. M. Dennekamp et al , Occup Environ Med, Aug 2001 [Ultrafine particles and nitrogen oxides generated by gas and electric cooking]; S. Marsden, Telegraph,6 Jun 2012 [Your kitchen could have worse air pollution than a city centre street: research]; J. Chao, Berkeley Lab News Release, 23 Jul 2013 [Pollution in the Home: Kitchens Can Produce Hazardous Levels of Indoor Pollutants].

26. D. Robinson, BMJ, 22 May 2015 [2.4 times more PM2.5 pollution from domestic wood burning than traffic]; H. Gilmore, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 Jun 2014 [Wood fire heaters: the hidden killer]; G. Turbak, Popular Science, December 1984, p.90 ["New technologies fight wood stove pollution"].

p.264: For the UK, the latest government figures show that wood-burning stoves (used by just 1/12 of the population) create three times as much PM2.5 particulate pollution as all road traffic. See D. Carrington, Guardian, 16 Feb 2021 [Wood burning at home now biggest cause of UK particle pollution] and D. Carrington, Guardian, 7 May 2021 [Fireplaces and stoves are bigger polluters than traffic].

27. D. Robinson, BMJ, 22 May 2015 [2.4 times more PM2.5 pollution from domestic wood burning than traffic]; DEFRA, Air Quality Expert Group, 2017, p16–17 [The Potential Air Quality Impacts from Biomass Combustion [PDF]]; H. Gilmore, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 Jun 2014 [Wood fire heaters: the hidden killer]. D. Carrington, Guardian, 15 February 22 [Wood burners emit more particle pollution than traffic, UK data shows].

p.265: Wales is among countries currently contemplating a ban on some coal and wood burning. See Clean air: Coal burning ban and wet wood restrictions planned by Steffan Messenger, BBC News, 13 Jan 2021.

p.265: Plume Labs published a great summary of the problems with wood burners in its February 2021 newsletter. Plume Labs, Plumeletter, Feb 2021 [Wood stoves and air quality].

28. Doctors and Scientists Against Wood Smoke Pollution [Wood Smoke Is Pollution]. D. Carrington, Guardian, 9 Oct 2021 ['Eco' wood stoves emit 750 times more pollution than an HGV, study shows].

29. C. Woodford, Explainthatstuff.com, 2008/2018 [HEPA filters]; From 2017, in Europe, there are laws setting limits on the power consumption of vacuum cleaners, as discussed in Telegraph, 3 Nov 2013 [EU energy-saving rules cut power of vacuum cleaners]; P. Barn et al, Sci Total Environ, Feb 2018 [The effect of portable HEPA filter air cleaners on indoor PM2.5 concentrations and second hand tobacco smoke exposure among pregnant women in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia].

30. C. Woodford, Explainthatstuff.com, 2010/2018 [Photocatalytic air purifiers].

31. B. Wolverton, Eco-friendly Houseplants, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996; B. Wolverton et al, NASA John C. Stennis Space Center, 15 Sep 1989 [Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement]

p.269: Press Association, Guardian, 18 Feb 2021 [Experts identify 'super-plant' that absorbs roadside air pollution].

32. Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.16—17 [State Of Global Air 2018].

33. New Atlas, 26 Feb 2014 [Orproject proposes huge sealed Bubble of clean air for Beijing]; S. Brownstone, Fast Company, 10 Dec 2013 [Purify The Air As You Ride, With This Photosynthesis Bike]; Cool Sparks, YouTube, 27 Jan 2013 [One Man's Mission to Combat Beijing Pollution].

Chapter 11: People power

1. Ipsos Global Advisor, May 2019 [Earth Day 2019: How does the world perceive our changing environment? [PDF]].

2. M. Safi, Guardian, 5 December 2017 [Sri Lankan bowler vomits in Delhi cricket match due to polluted air]; AFP, Phys.org, 8 Nov 2017 [Delhi schools shut as toxic smog hits India and Pakistan; Financial Express, New Delhi, 8 Nov 2017 [Delhi pollution: Yashwant Sinha takes a dig at PM Narendra Modi over silence on crisis-level smog; see what he said]; J. Gettleman et al, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 Dec 2017 [Environmentalists ask: Is India's government making bad air worse?]; S. Sengupta, New York Times, 13 Jun 2019 [Australia, in a Victory for Coal, Clears the Way for a Disputed Mine]; M. Walden, Al Jazeera, 17 May 2019 [Climate change to be decisive issue in Australian election].

3. S. Bernard and A. Kazmin, Financial Times (FT), 11 Dec 2018 [Dirty air: how India became the most polluted country on earth]; J. Basu, Telegraph India, 11 Apr 2019 [Breathless' in Varanasi? It's pollution, not Narendra Modi]; M. Abi-Habib and H. Kumar, New York Times, 11 Jan 2019 [India Finally Has Plan to Fight Air Pollution. Environmentalists Are Wary]; D. Spears, Foreign Policy, 9 Jul 2019 [India's Deadly War on Experts].

4. E .Carnell et al, Environ Res Lett, Vol 14/7, 2019 [Modelling public health improvements as a result of air pollution control policies in the UK over four decades—1970 to 2010]; M. Taylor, Guardian, 28 Aug 2018 [Too dirty to breathe: can London clean up its toxic air?]; D. Carrington and M. Taylor, Guardian, 27 Oct 2018 [Air pollution is the 'new tobacco', warns WHO head]; UK House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee, Sixth Report of Session 2014—15, p.6 [Air Quality Inquiry]; F. Kelly and J. Fussell, Environ Geochem Health, Aug 2015, p.644 [Air pollution and public health: emerging hazards and improved understanding of risk].

5. J. Lloret, Biogeochemistry, Augt 2016 [Unprecedented decrease in deposition of nitrogen oxides over North America: the relative effects of emission controls and prevailing air-mass trajectories]; T. Sullivan et al, Environ Sci Policy, June 2018 [Air pollution success stories in the United States: The value of long-term observations]; Y. Zhang et al, Atmos Chem Phys, Vol 18, 2018 [Long-term trends in the ambient PM2.5- and O3-related mortality burdens in the United States under emission reductions from 1990 to 2010]; N. Popovich. The New York Times, 19 Jun 2019 [America's Skies Have Gotten Clearer, but Millions Still Breathe Unhealthy Air]; J. West and B. Turpin, Conversation, 2 May 2019 [As air pollution increases in some US cities, the Trump administration is weakening clean air regulations]; US EPA, 2019 [Air Quality - National Summary]; E. Kaufman, CNN, 28 Feb 2019 [Senate confirms former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to lead EPA]; J. Turrentine, NRDC onEarth, 3 Aug 2018 [Weakening Car Pollution Rules: This May Be Trump's Dumbest Rollback Yet].

6. M. Brown, Conversation, 12 Jun 2019 [Why old-school climate denial has had its day]; K. Matthiesen, Guardian, 9 Oct 2017 [Tony Abbott says climate change is 'probably doing good']; G. Foyster, Eureka Street, 24 Apr 2019 [How Abbott still haunts climate policy]; M. McDonald, Conversation, 21 Jun 2018 [Lowy Institute Poll shows Australians' support for climate action at its highest level in a decade]; N. Toscano and D. Gray, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 Sep 2019 [Australia to hit 2020 large-scale renewables target 'ahead of schedule']; G. Readfearn, Guardian, 11 Nov 2019 [Australia's climate response among the worst in the G20, report finds]; A. Morton, Guardian, 8 Aug 2021 [Australia 'lagging at the back of the pack' of OECD countries on climate action, analysis finds]; F. Mao, BBC News, 8 Aug 2021 [Climate change: Why Australia refuses to give up coal]; J. Rowlatt and T. Gerken, 21 Oct 2021 [COP26: Document leak reveals nations lobbying to change key climate report].

p.279: We shouldn't tar all Australians with the same brush. For a more inspiring take, see E. Vistonay, Guardian, 17 Nov 2021 [Blockade Australia: anti-coal activists vow more disruption despite warnings of 25-year jail sentences].

7. R. Nixon, American Presidency Project, 22 Jan 1970 [Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union]; J. Goffman, Clean Law Podcast, Harvard Law School, 6 Dec 2018 [What Environmental Protection Owes George H.W. Bush]; G. Bush, Remarks on Clear Skies Legislation, 16 Sep 2003 [Cleaner Air]; US EPA, Nov 2015 [The Clean Air Act - Highlights of the 1990 Amendments]; F. Krupp, EDF, 4 Dec 2018 [George H.W. Bush, environmental hero: He exemplified the real art of the deal]; L. Fredrickson et al, Am J Public Health, Apr 2018 [History of US Presidential Assaults on Modern Environmental Health Protection]; E. Howard and L. Carter, Greenpeace Unearthed, 12 Apr 2018 [EPA officials: Scott Pruitt spread 'inaccurate' information about Obama emissions reform]; J. Walk, NRDC, 10 Oct 2017 [Trump EPA's Scientific Fraud on Deadly Air Pollution]; US EPA News Release, 10 Oct 2017 [EPA Takes Another Step To Advance President Trump's America First Strategy, Proposes Repeal Of 'Clean Power Plan']; M. Talbot, New Yorker, 2 Apr 2018 [Scott Pruitt's Dirty Politics: How the Environmental Protection Agency became the fossil-fuel industry's best friend]; US EPA News Release, 25 Jan 2018 [Reducing Regulatory Burdens: EPA withdraws "once in always in" policy for major sources under Clean Air Act]; A. Thomson and R. Lebe, Mother Jones, Mar/Apr 2018 [It's Been One Year of Amazing Scott Pruitt Accomplishments, All of Them Horrible]; S. Slesinger, NRDC, 14 Jun 2017 [How Can Scott Pruitt Defend Drastic Cuts to EPA's Budget?].

8. IEA, 2016, p.3 [World Energy Outlook: Energy and Air Pollution, 2016].

9. IEA, 2016, p.3 [World Energy Outlook: Energy and Air Pollution, 2016]; Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.16—17 [State Of Global Air 2018. ].

10. A. Chandrasekhar, 8 Nov 2019 [Delhi's toxic politicians must be held to account for this deadly pollution]; D. Ottewell, Manchester Evening News, 19 Apr 2010 [C-charge: A resounding 'NO']; News for Trafford, 16 Jul 2019 [Government fails to back Greater Manchester's clean air zone", News for Trafford].

11. D. Carrington, Guardian, 26 Jun 2019 [Action on air pollution works but far more is needed, study shows]; A. Intxausti, El País, 24 Apr 2019 [Díaz Ayuso: 'Los atascos son una seña de identidad de Madrid']; Por Europa Press, Moncloa, 12 Jul 2019 [Isabel Díaz Ayuso: Madrid Central "es una chapuza"]; Catalan News, 6 Jul 2019 [Colau's new plans for Barcelona to tackle the climate crisis]; M. Planelles, El País, 11 Jul 2019 [Brussels calls on Madrid, Barcelona to do more to combat air pollution]; C. Swan, Christian Science Monitor, 10 Jul 1984 [Museo del Prado—A Threatened Treasure]; G. Glueck, New York Times, 3 Apr 1972 [Museums Try a New Tack To Shelter Art Treasures From Air-Borne Pollution].

12. D. Trump, Twitter, 2:49pm, 22 Apr 2017 [Tweet: "I am committed to keeping our air and water clean but always remember that economic growth enhances environmental protection. Jobs matter!"]; F. Cairncross, Green Inc.: A Guide to Business and the Environment, Earthscan, 1996; H. Ritchie and M. Roser, Our World in Data, Apr/Oct 2017 [Air Pollution]; H. Ritchie, Our World in Data, 20 June 2017 [What the history of London's air pollution can tell us about the future of today's growing megacities].

13. P. Bagla, NDTV, 11 Nov 2017 [Air Pollution Harmful, But It Isn't A Killer, Says Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan]; S. Bernard and A. Kazmin, Financial Times (FT), 11 Dec 2018 [Dirty air: how India became the most polluted country on earth]; E. Howard and L. Carter, Greenpeace Unearthed, 12 Apr 2018 [EPA officials: Scott Pruitt spread 'inaccurate' information about Obama emissions reform]; C. Davenport and L. Friedman, New York Times, 7 Apr 2018 [In His Haste to Roll Back Rules, Scott Pruitt, E.P.A. Chief, Risks His Agenda]; A. Barteczko, Reuters, 17 Feb 2017 [Pollution does not cause premature death: Polish minister]; and for a useful global review of other air pollution deniers, see E. Howard, Guardian, 16 Nov 2017 [Modern air is too clean: the rise of air pollution denial].

14. Y. Yamineva and S. Romppanen, Rev Eur Comp Int Environ Law, Nov 2017 [Is law failing to address air pollution? Reflections on international and EU developments].

15. UK National Archives, [Clean Air Act 1993]; Friends of the Earth UK, 26 Apr 2017 [The London smog and 1956 Clean Air Act]; ClientEarth Press Release, 17 Feb 2017 [Time for a new UK Clean Air Act?]; P. Brimblecombe, The Big Smoke: A History of Air Pollution in London Since Medieval Times, Methuen, 1987, p.108.

16. "Chapter 23: The US Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990" in R. Boubel et al (eds), Fundamentals of Air Pollution, Academic Press, 1994, p.395; US EPA, 2019 [Clean Air Act Overview: Progress Cleaning the Air and Improving People's Health]; US EPA, June 2015 [The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act, 1970 to 1990 - Retrospective Study]; US EPA, 2019 [Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act 1990-2020, the Second Prospective Study]; J. West and B. Turpin, Conversation, 2 May 2019 [As air pollution increases in some US cities, the Trump administration is weakening clean air regulations].

17. US EPA, 2019 [Sulfur Dioxide Trends]. The slightly confusing chart on the EPA website appears to show an increase for 2019 over 2018, but the mean 2019 figure (the white line) is still lower than the 2018 figure if you inspect the actual data.

18. R. McKie, The Observer, 7 May 2017 [Air pollution: the battle to save Britain from suffocation]; Earth Justice, 2019 [Victories].

p.296: The European Court of Justice ruled in March 2021 that the UK government had "systematically and persistently" broken the legal limits on air pollution for a decade. D. Carrington, Guardian, 4 Mar 2021 [UK has broken air pollution limits for a decade, EU court finds].

19. S. Kings, Mail and Guardian (South Africa), 4 Jan 2019 [Enviro action plan for South Africa]; Ipsos Global Advisor, May 2019 [Earth Day 2019: How does the world perceive our changing environment? [PDF]]; Health Effects Institute (HEI), p.16—17 [State Of Global Air 2018]; N. Davis, Guardian, 14 Feb 2017 [65% of British public support new Clean Air Act, says survey]; P. Hannam, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 Nov 2018 ['Scandal': NSW coal power plants will kill thousands before they close"].

20. Sustainable Bus, 5 Nov 2018 [Germany 2030: 3,000 electric buses in 5 biggest cities]; M. Coren. Quartz, 19 Sep 2019 [Amazon orders 100,000 electric delivery trucks, doubling the fleet in Europe and North America]; Climate Group, 4 Feb 2019 [Leading businesses charge ahead with electric vehicles to tackle city air pollution—new report]; I. Courts, Air Quality News, 28 Jun 2019 [The public sector, industry and universities must work together to tackle air pollution]; R. Bundhun, The National, 12 Nov 2016 [India Inc tackles air pollution]; Mahindra Group, 2019 [Rise for Good]; A. Singh Nagpure, WRI India, 3 Jun 2019 [Why Do Indian Businesses Need to Take Air Pollution Seriously?].

21. J. Elkington and T. Burke, The Green Capitalists: Industry's Search for Environmental Excellence, Gollancz, 1989; P. Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce, HarperCollins, 1994; F. Cairncross, Green Inc.: A Guide to Business and the Environment, Earthscan, 1996; Patagonia, 2019 [Organic Cotton]; A. Toffler, Future Shock, Bodley Head, 1970.

22. F. Cairncross, Green Inc.: A Guide to Business and the Environment, Earthscan, 1996; P. Kingsnorth, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist, Faber, 2017.

23. A. Chrisafis, Guardian, 25 Jun 2019 [France loses landmark court case over air pollution]; D. Carrington and M. Taylor, Guardian, 27 Oct 2018 [Air pollution is the 'new tobacco', warns WHO head]; A. Hussain. BBC News, 10 Nov 2019 [Pakistan pollution: Teens fight to save Lahore from toxic air].

24. D. Boyle, Telegraph, 18 Apr 2016 [Greenpeace protesters climb Nelson's Column and put gas masks on statues of Oliver Cromwell and Winston Churchill in Westminster].

25. J. Curtis, Daily Mail, 16 Nov 2016 [Greenpeace campaigners who scaled Nelson's Column for a publicity stunt and caused thousands of pounds worth of damage are spared jail].

26. Broader socialist plot. See for example the comments by British politician Craig Morley about climate change being a "socialist Trojan horse" in R. Mason, Guardian, 7 Nov 2019 [Tory election hopeful called climate crisis 'socialist Trojan horse']; Doctors and Scientists Against Wood Smoke Pollution [Wood Smoke Is Pollution]; UN BreatheLife2030, 4 Dec 2018 [Doctors For Clean Air Leads India's Medical Community In Fight Against Air Pollution].

p.296: I was very pleased to see a news snippet by Dr Gary Fuller noting that cardiac organizations are now calling on doctors to highlight the dangers of dirty air, just as they highlighted the risks of smoking in the late 20th century. G. Fuller, Guardian, 12 Feb 2021 [Pollutionwatch: campaign calls on doctors to champion clean air].

27. M. Taylor, The Guardian, 30 Sep 2018 [London air pollution is poisoning my son, says campaigner]; D. Smith, 2019 [Little Ninja Blog]; Moms Clean Air Force, 2019 [Moms Clean Air Force]. In the UK, check out the equally inspired Mums for Lungs.

28. A. Larkin and P. Hystad, Curr Environ Health Rep, Dec 2017 [Towards Personal Exposures: How Technology Is Changing Air Pollution and Health Research]; Mayor of London Press Release, 15 Jan 2019 [Mayor launches world's largest air quality monitoring network].

29. WHO, 2 May 2018 [9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air, but more countries are taking action]; A. Irwin. Nature, 23 Oct 2018 [No PhDs needed: how citizen science is transforming research]; N. Davis, Guardian, 30 Aug 2015 [Wanted! An army of citizen scientists to tackle air pollution]; R. Day and J. Ortmann, Popular Science, Oct 1970, p.97 [Build your own air pollution tester]; Plume Labs, 10 Dec 2019 [Launched! Street-by-Street Air Quality Maps by Plume Labs].

30. B. Chatterjee, Hindustan Times, 7 Aug 2019 [Pakistan works with India to set up real-time air quality monitors].

31. D. Carrington, Guardian, 12 Aug 2019 [Pakistan works with India to set up real-time air quality monitors]; Edie, 14 Feb 2017 [Survey reveals 'discernible shift' towards public acceptance of climate change].

p.300: World's biggest killer? You can certainly make a powerful argument for this, although the truth is that there's so much we still don't know. It's probably safest to describe pollution as the biggest environmental threat to public health or the biggest cause of death from the environment. For some comparative figures, see for example: J. Lelieveld et al, Cardiovasc. Res, Volume 116, Issue 11, 1 September 2020, pp.1910–1917 [Loss of life expectancy from air pollution compared to other risk factors: a worldwide perspective]; and S. Malo, World Economic Forum, 21 Nov 2018 [Air pollution is the world's top killer, according to new research]; and P. Das et al, Lancet, Vol. 391, No. 10119 [Pollution, health, and the planet: time for decisive action]. According to the last article: "Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and death in the world today, responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015."

Coming Clean (Conclusion)

1. S. Laville, Guardian, 8 Jul 2019 [Air pollution in Birmingham 'shortens lives of children by half a year].

2. S. Griffiths, Griffiths, 1873, p.112 [Guide to the Iron Trade of Great Britain].

3. BBC News, 13 Jan 2020 [Birmingham cars could be banned from driving through city centre].

4. J. Halifax, Birmingham Mail, 5 May 2015 [The world's first successful steam engine born in the Black Country]; WHO Ambient Air Pollution Database 2016 (retrieved Sep 2019).

5. H. Ritchie, Our World in Data, 20 June 2017 [What the history of London's air pollution can tell us about the future of today's growing megacities].

6. International Energy Agency (IEA), [World Energy Outlook 2017].

7. S.Sengupta et al, New York Times, 15 Aug 2019 [How One Billionaire Could Keep Three Countries Hooked on Coal for Decades].

8. D. Carrington and M. Taylor, Guardian, 27 Oct 2018 [Air pollution is the 'new tobacco', warns WHO head].

p.311: Thankfully, in September 2021, the WHO dramatically revised its guidelines for the first time in 16 years, halving the value for particulates and reducing the recommended limit for nitrogen dioxide by 75 percent. This is a much better reflection of the harm air pollution is now known to cause but, of course, makes it even harder for the world's cities to claim that the air their citizens are breathing is anywhere near clean. See D. Carrington, 22 Sep 2021 [WHO slashes guideline limits on air pollution from fossil fuels].