Lethal Air
Fiser, Webb S.
Lethal Air The Breath of Life, by Donald E. Carr. Norton. 175 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by Webb S. Fiser Tn dealing with the problem of poi-soned air, Donald E. Carr continues in the path marked out...
...These were the dramatic cases, but Carr believes that many deaths are attributable to the lower concentration of pollution normally in the atmosphere...
...There is perhaps one hopeful difference...
...Carr believes that eventually the pollution problem will require a change in the automobile's power plant since the chemistry of exhaust fumes is so complicated a matter that it is highly doubtful the internal combustion engine can be rendered harmless...
...It might easily become a popular fad if Detroit would devote a portion of its research and development expenditures, and later of its advertising budget, to that end...
...More importantly, they have not been energetically seeking alternative methods of powering their vehicles...
...The lethal nature of the air we breathe has been highlighted by several disasters brought on by air inversions in which smog is kept on the ground because the air is warmer at upper altitudes than it is on the ground...
...He believes that the companies should be more vigorously developing diesel engines, which pose a less complicated technical problem, and the gas-turbine car, which poses little pollution problem...
...Carr fears that the average American is "a willing partner in the automotive complex" and "may hesitate to accept the analysis of experts...
...Donora, Pennsylvania, in 1948...
...Since Carr is a chemist I am inclined to take seriously his judgment that air pollution is probably a major cause of these and other evils...
...Reviewed by Webb S. Fiser Tn dealing with the problem of poi-soned air, Donald E. Carr continues in the path marked out by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring...
...Poza Rica near Mexico City in 1950, and the "Black Fog" of London in 1952 which killed 4,000 people in four days...
...But, "because of the enormous equities in maintaining the present automotive systems, and the fact that these represent the most profitable enterprise in history, the automobile manufacturers will not consider such a change...
...Carr argues that the automobile manufacturers have been dragging their feet on the whole pollution problem...
...The chief villain in the piece is the exhaust of present automobile engines...
...Industrial pollution is a relatively minor problem which can be handled without too much difficulty...
...The gas-turbine car does pose other problems which Carr feels could be solved by determined effort...
...We would not have to give up our car, only our internal combustion engine for city driving...
...However, he does not believe that the present efforts of Los Angeles County and state authorities to delouse the internal combustion engine will be very successful...
...He wonders whether he will "continue to drive his lethal car, just as he will continue smoking cigarettes...
...For Carr this is more than a rhetorical question, since he confesses that he has not given up cigarettes...
...This is not just bad luck since we must expect such inversions periodically...
...Indeed, these devices may make matters worse, for while they can reduce the carbon monoxide released into the air, the nitrogen dioxide content is increased...
...Among other signs pointing in the direction of air pollution is the fact that deaths from lung cancer in birds and animals at the Philadelphia zoo have increased sixfold in sixty years...
...California has refused to include in its regulations restrictions on the emission of nitrogen dioxide because there are no established commercial methods for coping with the gas...
...Since more and more American families own two cars, there seems to be little reason that most city driving should not be done in such cars which should have a range of 100 miles or more before recharging or change of batteries is necessary...
...Carr recounts the best known cases—in the Meuse Valley in 1930...
...They have been lethargic in dealing with the present exhaust problem...
...While the whole story is not yet fully understood by air pollution scientists, Carr makes out a convincing case for the proposition that in some cities air pollution is reaching a point of crisis...
...The author argues persuasively that such cars would have many other advantages in addition to being pollution-free...
...Carr makes out a good case for the strong probability that the latter is the greater danger...
...It is now impossible to grow spinach or orchids in Los Angeles, nylons sometimes dissolve in city air, and the pollutants are even destroying building facades and priceless statuary...
...His book, The Breath of Life, attempts, with considerable success, to awaken greater interest in what we are doing chemically to the air we breathe...
...Carr's conclusion, however, is that an electrically powered automobile based on the fuel cell may be the real answer...
Vol. 29 • July 1965 • No. 7
