Historic Dates
Ca. 1800
BC Earliest documented impact of anthropogenic air pollution on human
beings. The Beauty of Loulan’s lungs were extensively damaged by sand
dust and campfire smoke.
Ca. 500
BC Lao Tzu states impact of man on environment, including air
quality.
Ca. 300
AD Local Roman magistrate passes laws regulating certain sources of
air pollution in York, England. (breweries, meat slaughtering)
1180 -
Moses Maimonides - Describes air pollution in cities and its
effects on man.
1272
- Edward I - Banned use of "sea coal ". Parliament ordered
punishment by torturing and hanging of people who sold and burned the
outlawed coal.
1390 (?) -
Richard II - Regulated and restricted use of coal in London.
1420 (?) -
Henry V - Ditto.
1661 -
John Evelyn - Earliest extant treatise on air pollution. "Fumifugium;
or the Inconvenience of the Air and Smoke of London Dissipated; Together
with Some Remedies Humbly Proposed".
1692 -
Robert Boyle - " a General History of the Air ", mentions "nitros
or salino-sulphureous spirits".
1772 -
Hales- Analysis of dew and rain, noted that "the air is full
of acid and sulphurus particles".
1734 -
Linne (Sweden) - Studied effects of an iron smelter on local
air.
1775
- Sir Percival Pott - Intuited that soot has a carcinogenic
component causing high incidence of cancer of the scrotum in chimney
sweeps.
1852 -
Robert Angus Smith - Noted three zones of air pollution;
fields and open country with carbonate and ammonia, ammonium sulfate in
suburbs, and acid sulfate and sulfuric acid in town.
1854-56
- Austria, Germany - Enacted laws against pollution with specific
exemptions for air and water!
1872 -
Robert Angus Smith - "Air and Acid Rain: The Beginnings of
a Chemical Climatology" - First use of the term "acid rain".
1895 -
Earliest known US air pollution law making illegal the
"showing of visible vapor" as exhaust from steam automobiles.
1911
- Crowther and Ruston - Tie together acid rain and
combustion.
1956 -
British Clean Air Act
1963 -
US Clean Air Act (CAA)
1965 -
Title II (US CAA) Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act
1977 -
Amendments to CAA look for carcinogenic materials (POMS,
PNAs).
1980
- US/Canada Memorandum of Intent to develop a bilateral
approach to the acid rain problem.
1987
- Montreal protocol to reduce CFC production (ozone
destruction in upper atmosphere)
1990
- Clean Air Act Amendments addressing Acid Rain, Alternative
fuels
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