Urban air quality is back in the news. For a few weeks running, Beijing and other Chinese cities are suffering under a thick layer of smog. Factories are closing, officials are urging citizens to stay indoors, and physicians are making the first guesses at the death toll. It is a problem that industrial societies around the globe are long familiar with. Wherever people and factories concentrate in large number, smog has been an issue. Smoke is the emblematic pollution problem of the industrial age, and it says a lot about paths of industrialization, national styles of regulation, and popular sentiments.
The presentation takes a long view on the issue, tracing efforts to reduce particulate emissions in Germany, the United States and Great Britain from the nineteenth century to the present. It discusses the various factors that influenced and hindered policies, showing that negligent industrialists were far less important for the failure of policies than frequently assumed. The presentation shall also offer some perspectives on where we stand in our efforts to manage air quality in Europe and in the world.
Frank Uekoetter studied history, political science and the social sciences at universities in Freiburg, Bielefeld, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. Since receiving his Ph.D. in 2001, he published numerous books and articles on environmental issues, including The Green and the Brown. A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany (2006) and The Age of Smoke first book.
His work lies at the intersection of history and environmental studies, and one of his concerns is to link discussions of the past with current events. After working at the University of Bielefeld for many years, he came to Munich, Germany, in 2006. He was a co-founder of Munich’s Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society and is currently moving to a new position at the University of Birmingham (UK).
DURATION: 30:30
