Three hundred sixty four years ago, on this day, September 13th, 1661,
“Whilst Evelyn is most celebrated for his journals documenting the plague and the Great Fire of London, Fumifugium has been widely recognised as one of the first rational, reasoned and scientific accounts of pollution (Jenner, 1995; Sinclair, 1973). It was a campaigning pamphlet that was presented to King Charles II on 13th September 1661 soon after the King’s coronation in April of that year”
(Atkins & McBride: 1267-8)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 270ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that London was becoming unbearably polluted. My goodness, how times change! Everyone was using filthy sea coal, as it was called, for heating their houses and so forth. And here was an air pollution rant delivered to the king. This was of course just after Cromwell had died and the king had come back.
What we learn here Is that “please do something mighty majesty” style activism has a long history. We’re still doing it today when we’re tugging at the sleeve of regulatory agencies, even though they’ve been captured, or parties, even though they’ve been captured, and even corporations, even though they’re capitalists and raptors.
What happened next? London’s air quality magically improved. And no, it didn’t. And then there’s a whole stream of Apocalypse literature in the late 19th century, about the London fogs just getting worse and worse. And then finally in 1952, thanks to a temperature inversion a whole lot of people died in a prolonged smog event. You can either say it was 4000, which was the estimate at the time, but later estimates say 11000. And that opened the door to a new Clean Air Act (1956) There had been many before. And despite the best efforts of the Conservative government and Macmillan’s “Macmillan manoeuvre.” The Clean Air Act had some teeth and some impact and drove policy innovation and a certain amount of technological innovation. And at least the visible quality of London became less shit. Whether the invisible (2.5ppms) got much better, is another interesting question.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
Atkins, J. * McBride, K. 2021 “Fumifugium: Or the inconvenience of the Aer and Smoake of London Dissipated”: emancipatory social accounting in 17th century London. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal Vol. 35 No. 5, 20 pp. 1262-1286
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 280ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures.
What have ye done, starts by talking of the high hopes of the Royal Society. Well, about them –
The nobility and intelligentsia, however, occasionally became critical and even constructive. John Eveelyn, a noted busybody and do-gooder and one of the founding members of the Royal Society, wrote a pamphlet in 1661, which was ordered to be published by Charles II, “Furnigofiuim, or the Inconvenience [page break] of Air and Smoke of London Dissipated; together with Some Remedies Humbly Proposed.”
In 1686, Justel presented before the Philosophical Society “An account of an Engine that Consumes Smoke.” The suggestions made were lively and imaginative rather than practicable, but it is worthy pointing out that Justel’s smoke-consuming monster embodies a concept that has recently been emphasized by Professor Fritz Zwicky of Cal Tech.
(Carr, 1965: 34-5)
The context was that Samuel Johnson was having to knock out these sorts of essays with stunning regularity. I’ve not read a lot of Johnson but I think I have read all the essays in a collection that confirm this man was a stone-cold genius. Probably quite unpleasant, but stone cold genius.
What I think we can learn from this
well if you take what Johnson says to heart and manage your expectations of changing the world downwards, maybe if we had all done that we wouldn’t be in this mess.
[Biographical note – I don’t know where I first encountered mention of it but I think it was in when I was living in Bristol in 1996 or 7 because I remember borrowing a copy from the Bristol City Council library; I think it was in store and here we are.]
What happened next
Johnson appeared disguised as the late Robbie Coltrane in an episode of Blackadder the Third and it was freaking hilarious.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
Carr, D. (1965) The Breath of Life. New York WW. Norton & Company
