Britain's supremacy in the nineteenth century depended in large part on its vast deposits of coal. This coal not only powered steam engines in factories, ships, and railway locomotives but also warmed homes and cooked food. As coal consumption skyrocketed, the air in Britain's cities and towns became filled with ever-greater and denser clouds of smoke. In this far-reaching study, Peter Thorsheim explains that, for much of the nineteenth century, few people in Britain even considered coal smoke to be pollution. To them, pollution meant miasma: invisible gases generated by decomposing plant and animal matter. Far from viewing coal smoke as pollution, most people considered smoke to be a valuable disinfectant, for its carbon and sulfur were thought capable of rendering miasma harmless. Inventing Pollution examines the radically new understanding of pollution that emerged in the late nineteenth century, one that centered not on organic decay but on coal combustion. This change, as Peter Thorsheim argues, gave birth to the smoke-abatement movement and to new ways of thinking about the relationships among humanity, technology, and the environment.
Peter Thorsheim is an assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
直到20世纪最初那几年,也就是英国工业革命开始一百多年以后,英国人才开始发现驱动蒸汽机的煤炭燃烧排放出来的煤烟与水汽化形成的雾不是同一种物质,并将其命名为“烟雾”(smog)。 在过去,人们常常将煤烟和水汽的混合物笼统地称作雾。 在时人眼里,城里的雾与乡村的雾是不...
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评分PM2.5数值屡屡爆表,雾霾之下,身在户外须臾不敢脱下口罩。有人戏言,会不会某天,人类必须带着防毒面具生活啊?这真不是杞人忧天,如果那天到来,可能还得装备上一副能透视厚重雾霾的特制眼镜才行。 在《发明污染:工业革命以来的煤、烟文化》中,彼得·索尔谢姆详细描述了19...
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