Clearing the Air

In 1900, there were 600 electric taxis driving around New York, accounting for around a third of all vehicles on the road. Even Porsche produced the all-electric model ‘P1’ in 1899. So, what happened? In 1908 the first affordable mass-produced car, the Ford Model T, chose the rival gasoline-powered engine. Then crude oil was discovered in Texas, suddenly flooding the market. Pretty soon, world power rested on the control and distribution of oil, and greater consumption was encouraged and subsidised. Electric transport faded as a minor domestic concern by comparison.

For as long as humans have burned things, then, air pollution has been a killer. But as our industrial practices became more advanced, the wood smoke of our ancient ancestors in Wonderwerk and Qesem morphed into something entirely different. The daily proximity to smoke persists, but rather than form an open hearth it pours from thousands of combustion engines and industrial furnaces. Modern economics began discovering and burning more and more chemical compounds, and the smoke became deadlier. A physician from the University of Cincinnati, Clarence A. Mills, wrote in the Journal Science in 1950, ‘Let us hope that the Donora disaster will awaken people everywhere to the dangers they face from pollution of the air they breathe to live.’ His hopes were not realised. Instead, by the early twenty-first century, humans have unwittingly turned the air into the largest known environmental health risk.

The drivers sitting in diesel vehicles are exposed to the worst doses of all. At the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence in Edinburgh, David Newby recalls that, ‘The Sunday Times ran a mischievous article following [one of my studies] saying you shouldn’t cycle in the city. In actual fact, if you take a particle monitor inside a car, the levels are often three times higher than outside. Often there are no cabin filters in the air circulation. The air inlets at the front of the car are usually taking in the exhaust of the car in front of you.’ The closer you are to the road, he says, ‘the more pollution you breathe’, and the car driver is obviously the closest of all. As for cyclists and pedestrians, ‘the difference is exponential; you only need to be removed by one or two metres. Proper segregated cycle lanes that are only a metre away from the road can be enough.’ Jim Mills, with his experience servicing the AURA (Automatic Urban and Rural Network), backs this up: ‘it’s a well-known fact that if you’re driving through [a major road] you will get a higher dose than a cyclist or pedestrian most of the time. Because you’re sitting in a bubble, you’re not getting the benefit of the air moving around you and diluting whatever pollution is around, you are essentially breathing air which is the exhaust of the car in front. We did some work for Dispatches on [UK] Channel 4 where we measured inside vehicles, on a bike, on a pedestrian and in a bus, and the highest level in every one of those studies that we did was the driver. So, the guys who are producing the pollution are actually getting the highest dose ... most people believe when they go inside their car and shut the door that the pollution is outside and they’re safe, but nothing could be further from the truth.’ The average adult in the US spends 55 minutes each day driving or being driven inside one such bubble of pollution.