Pesticides and Pollution. Kenneth Mellanby
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when coal fires in cities were found to produce winter fog and punitive laws were introduced, apparently with little permanent effect. As cities were small, and little coal was burned, probably no great damage was done except perhaps to men themselves living in unventilated houses. When cities grew, smoke became, and still is, a major problem.
Industrial development in the nineteenth century was accompanied by new types of pollution. Hydrochloric acid gas from alkali works caused a public outcry, with resulting legislation. Attempts have since been made to restrict all the emissions from factories to a “safe” level. This happened none too soon. Much of the gross pollution accompanying the dereliction in areas like the lower Swansea Valley was airborne from factories in the area.
The results of atmospheric pollution differ in an interesting way from those of insecticides which are discussed in later chapters. Man himself has been the major victim of polluted air; insecticides have had serious effects on wild life, but man has seldom been injured by the direct effect of these substances. The ecological significance of this difference is discussed in later chapters.
Every urban housewife is only too well aware of the reality of atmospheric pollution. Curtains and furnishings remain clean for months or years in the country; in the towns they are grimy in a matter of days. Students of pathology who have only seen inside the corpses of city-dwellers are amazed, and think they have found some new disease, when they see for the first time the healthy red lungs of a farm worker who has never lived in or near a town. Walkers on the moors of the Peak District know that their clothes will be blackened if they sit on the heather, and most flocks of sheep there, except immediately after shearing, seem to consist only of black sheep. The Peak District sheep on moors surrounded by industrial towns contrast with the much whiter animals found in the remoter highlands of Scotland, and this colour difference has been suggested as a rough and ready means of estimating pollution.
Air pollution in Britain to-day is mainly due to burning coal and oil. Local effects from many chemical processes, and petrol and from diesel engines also make their contribution. Perhaps the most serious chemical problem is due to fluorine, mainly from brick works, and this is specially mentioned below. Legislation and regulations have reduced the amount of many pollutions to such an extent that wild life is usually not seriously harmed, except in particular danger areas, but the amounts of dust, smoke and sulphur dioxide produced from fuel are so enormous and so unaesthetic that they cannot be ignored.
Britain consumes annually about 200,000,000 tons of coal and 25,000,000 tons of fuel oil. The output of noxious products is estimated at 1,000,000 tons of dust, 2,000,000 tons of smoke and over 5,000,000 tons of sulphur dioxide. Coal produces relatively more smoke and dust, and oil more sulphur dioxide. This pollution is obviously very unevenly spread over the country. The Ministry of Technology, formerly the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, compiles reports from some 2,111 recording instruments spread all over Britain. These show that in heavily industrialised areas over 1,000 tons of grit and dust must fall on each square mile in a year; this corresponds to about two pounds on each square yard. In cities generally the figure is in the region of a quarter of a pound, and in rural districts it may be less than a tenth of an ounce. Sulphur dioxide, being a gas, is dispersed more readily, and the rural concentration is probably about a tenth of the urban or industrial figure, though under unfavourable conditions much higher values may be obtained adjacent to some factories. The housewife knows that polished silver or copper tarnishes more quickly in the town than in the country; this is correlated with the SO2 in the air.
The effects of industrial pollution on man have been studied intensively, but with somewhat confusing results. It is believed that the four-day “smog” in December, 1952, killed some 4,000 Londoners. Exactly how smog, which is looked on as a brand of fog containing more contaminants and smaller and more penetrating particles, kills is not understood. It may act as a general irritant which acts as the “last straw” in the weak and those with respiratory trouble. It has been suggested that the excess of free sulphuric acid is the lethal factor, but total amounts are small (only 0·05 parts per million as a maximum) and this view is not generally accepted. There is no doubt that smog is a killer, and it kills other animals than man if they are exposed (many cattle died at the 1957 Smithfield Show), but fortunately it does not often spread outside our largest cities. Mist, which consists of relatively clean water particles, is of course widespread. Fog, which is essentially mist containing amounts of smoke, penetrates some distance from industrial areas, but seems to have comparatively little acute effect on man or animals.
Acute effects on man and animals of smog, and possibly of fog, can be shown to occur even if they cannot be fully explained. Chronic effects of the usual urban levels of pollution no doubt occur, but are not so easily demonstrated. Lung cancer is higher in cities than in the country, but we do not know the precise cause. Respiratory diseases are similarly commonest in industrial areas. Although we ourselves filter the air we breathe and reject much of the dirt, city dwellers’ lungs are impregnated with dirt particles, and it is difficult to feel sure that this is not harmful. For these reasons considerable efforts are being made to reduce atmospheric pollution. “Smoke-free” zones have been scheduled in most cities, and some progress is being slowly achieved to reduce the smoke and dust. Fogs and smogs are less serious than they were, though the amount of sulphur dioxide in the air is less easily controlled and tends to increase even in smoke-free zones.
Farmers near to cities suffer from the effects of smoke and grime. It has been estimated that pollution, by damaging pastures in particular, costs the East Lancashire farmers over two and a half million pounds a year. Horticulturalists find that smoke reduces light intensity indoors and out, and obscures the glass of greenhouses, covering them with deposits which are difficult and costly to remove.
Smoke, by reducing light intensity, will obviously retard plant growth, and may encourage some species at the expense of others, though there seems remarkably little evidence of this happening except in industrial areas. Many city gardens do indeed suffer from the lack of light, but this is not due to pollution so much as to shading from buildings, and, more particularly, from trees. The luxuriant growth on bomb sites was a revelation to many. Here shading from buildings and trees was reduced to a minimum. Often one finds that spring flowers do quite well, before the trees are in leaf. In the confined space of a small city garden we may prefer trees to flowers, but we can seldom have both.
The effects of heavy deposits on leaves may be even more important. Evergreen species in heavily polluted areas have been shown to have a rate of transpiration of only about one tenth of normal and the leaves last a much shorter time than they do in pure air. Thus in some conifers the leaves normally live for up to eight years, and contribute to photosynthesis and growth for the whole of their lives. With moderate pollution the leaves may die and fall off in three or four years; heavy pollution may cause annual leaf fall and such trees hardly grow perceptibly and usually die. Some workers have suggested that particles of grime act by bunging up the stomata, but usually it seems that these are left patent and the effects are due to reduced transpiration, and, in some cases, to poisoning from sulphur or other substances. Deciduous trees which lose their leaves each year are often less susceptible to damage from pollution, as the leaves can complete their normal work before they are put, partly or entirely, out of action. Those responsible for planting in public parks in cities and industrial areas are well aware that spruce and firs are less likely to succeed than larch or oak. The exact way in which pollution harms trees is not fully understood.
I have already mentioned that atmospheric pollution by sulphur dioxide is becoming worse rather than better. The air in cities commonly contains 0·1 parts per million, that in rural areas 0·1 parts, but sometimes concentrations as high as 1 part per million may occur locally, under particular weather conditions, at distances from the source. Experiments have shown that most flowering plants show no damage to 0·1 parts per million even with long exposures, but higher concentrations usually cause damage such as leaf blotching and loss of yield. Some of the crop reductions on farms near towns are probably due to this cause, but it seems unlikely that there is much damage to wild life in rural areas. Sometimes this type of pollution may be economically advantageous; the absence from industrial areas of the fungus causing rose mildew is almost certainly due to sulphur in the atmosphere. This suggests that other species of fungi, which are in general much more susceptible to sulphur poisoning