"Pollution and environmental regulation in the 20th century: Science and policy of the annoying, unhealthy, toxic and dangerous."

Seminar given by Pablo Corral Broto. University of la Réunion, Saint Denis.

Broadcast online: reunion.uv.es/hcc2

Based on the research carried out in Aragonese, Catalan and Madrid archives, we will analyse issues related to the determination of toxic products, understood as industrial emissions into the air, soil or water, under the Franco regime. Secondary studies on the previous stages and some on other contexts will help us to determine what Francoism and its industrial regime meant in terms of the perception of pollution, of the many toxic products (radioactive, chemical, thermal, etc.), of the regulation of it and of the private, institutional and civil society strategies to redefine it. The intention of this seminar will be to present the archives, newspaper libraries and other sources containing quantitative and qualitative empirical data on pollution and its treatment and measurement. Scientists have acknowledged that data from many projects before 2000 have been lost on numerous occasions, and even many raw data from the early years of 2000 also disappear.

History is therefore the only source that can rescue this information that never disappears to establish theories of broadening historical perspective.