The Forgotten Smog Clouds

Back around the turn of the millennium, John Stossel acquainted me with the modern right-wing political argument, either breath-takingly clueless or slyly corrupt, that when a law works too effectively it should be ended. Mr. Stossel took a swim in the Hudson River in front of the camera to demonstrate how laws to clean up water pollution are unnecessary, and in so doing he convinced me that listening to him was a waste of time.

In his category of the unnecessary, J.S. included laws to prevent or mitigate air pollution, which made me wonder whether he remembers the smog clouds that once surrounded U.S. cities before the E.P.A. came into existence, or if he somehow never noticed the problems. I remember very well that the New York City smog cloud could be clearly seen from the Tappan Zee Bridge, even though the rest of the skyline could not. I don't remember the extent of every smog cloud around the major cities I travelled through in the early 1970s, but I do remember that all of those cities, from Atlanta to Buffalo, Louisville to Washington, and on and on, they all had one.

The smog cloud I do remember well, though, was the Chicago one. It started about 100 miles outside of the city, and you could see it clearly for about 20 to 30 miles before you got into it. As you approached the smog cloud, it seemed to disappear, which meant that you were getting inside of it, and once inside of it, you could easily forget about it, because it showed no obvious signs of its presence. Living inside of it, most of the time you could be completely unaware of its existence, as probably most people were. 

One sunny spring morning in the early 1970s, though, that smog cloud did show itself to me, as I happened to be awake before sunrise, staying up all night in the company of my college text books. I looked eastward across Lake Michigan, wanting to see the sunrise, but I couldn't see the sun come up because the smog was too thick. As the surroundings got brighter and clearer, I kept glancing eastward, and I couldn't see any clouds blocking the sun, but I also couldn't see the sun. About an hour after it was actually daylight, the sun slowly rose above the edge of the haze, but by then I knew I couldn't honestly tell anyone I had seen the sunrise.

Slowly, during the '70s and '80s, the smog clouds around American cities disappeared, largely as a result of laws passed by Congress and enforced by the E.P.A. The 2011 W.H.O. ranking of the cities of the world with the worst air quality showed that U.S. and Canadian cities now have much cleaner air than cities in Asia which, by some odd coincidence, have much less regulation on sources of air pollution. Folks like John Stossel would have us believe that regulations and the E.P.A. have nothing to do with those air quality rankings, which makes me want to say one thing to him: "Give me a break!"