Working Paper: NBER ID: w15669
Authors: Karen Clay; Werner Troesken
Abstract: In a paper presented to the Royal Meteorological Society, Brodie (1905) presented a data series that presaged the modern Environmental Kuznets Curve: in the decades leading up to 1890, the number of foggy days in London rose steadily, but after 1891, the fogs began to subside. Brodie attributed the rise and fall of the London fog to variation in emissions of coal smoke, arguing that before 1890 Londoners burned excessive amounts of soft coal, while in the years following, a series of legal, demographic, and technological changes mitigated the production of coal smoke. This paper asks two questions. First, are Brodie's underlying data trustworthy? Do other, independent sources of evidence same patterns Brodie identified? Was London's atmosphere becoming more polluted and foggy for most of the nineteenth century, only to improve around 1890? Second, if so, is Brodie's interpretation of the data correct? Can the changes in London's atmosphere be attributed to changes in the production of coal smoke, or were they the result of some broader meteorological phenomenon. The evidence we present here is consistent Brodie's data and interpretation.
Keywords: Environmental Kuznets Curve; Coal Smoke; London Fog; Public Health; Smoke Abatement
JEL Codes: N13; N3; N5; Q0; Q38; Q53; Q54; Q58
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| coal consumption and pollution levels (P18) | health outcomes related to respiratory diseases (I14) |
| coal smoke emissions (L94) | foggy days (Y70) |
| smoke abatement measures (Q52) | foggy days (Y70) |
| smoke abatement efforts (Q52) | respiratory disease mortality rates (I12) |
| technological and legal changes (O33) | foggy days (Y70) |