Acid Rain by Fred Pearce, Penguin (Harmondsworth, 1987)
Acid rain kills trees, eats away at stone, brick, paper and rubber, kills soils and fish and humans. This study attempts to explain how acid rain affects the environment and what causes it. It is not a new phenomenon for, as Pearce points out, the London pea soup fog of 1952 that killed some 4,000 people contained "water droplets. . . nearly as acid as the water in a car battery". The problem is exacerbated by the complexity of the chemical reaction. Ozone is formed in sunlight from hydrocarbons and nitrogen dioxide. It damages trees and acts as an irritant to human lungs. Ozone also helps in the conversion of gases to acid rain. We have begun to understand how the chemical soups are formed and we also have the technology to deal with that problem. The question is whether the political and economic will exists to carry out the necessary measures.
There has been much talk of acid rain but the actual extent of the environmental consequences are perhaps less well known. Sixty seven per cent of Norway's lakes have lost their stocks of brown trout during the century. Much of the poisoning emanates from the world's largest concentration of coal-fired power stations in a 20 kilometre stretch of the Aire valley. Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge combined pump out 600,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide each year. The problem is not restricted to the interchange between Britain and Scandinavia. West Germany exports 500,000 tonnes of sulphur each year — and receives about the same amount. There is also as much nitrogen dioxide in circulation, from the many cars on which our transportation system is reliant. Sulphur dioxide is converted to sulphuric acid while nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide are converted to nitric acid. Nitrogen oxides are also a key ingredient in the formation of ozone. Such acids are no respecters of national frontiers:
Around 17 per cent of the acid that falls on Norway comes from Britain. About 20 per cent of that falling on Sweden comes from Eastern Europe. It leaps oceans, too. Perhaps five per cent of the add falling in Europe has blown across the Atlantic from North America (p. 23)
Britain has made strides in reducing sulphur emissions mostly through the Clean Air Acts. The pea soup fogs no longer happen. The dominant players in the league table of filthy air are now East Germany, Czechoslovakia. Poland and Russia. As an example 20 per cent of Polish people live in areas with sulphur dioxide levels in excess of permitted government levels (which are in any case four times higher than levels set in the USA.) Sunshine levels in Cracow have been reduced from an average of five hours a day in 1945 to about three hours at present. Twelve per cent of East Germany's forests are now damaged by pollution. We are fully aware of the extent to which acid is capable of eating into buildings. Marble is converted by acid into gypsum which is washed away by rainfall. The problem of attaching a price to aesthetics and history is an additional complication. Another estimate has suggested that the medieval glass of Europe may "disappear within a generation". At a more basic level the corrosion of Britain's water-mains is being exacerbated by the action of acidic water. More frighteningly the action of acidic water has attendant consequences. Pearce says of Scotland that:
Millions of people live in areas where the public water supply comes from reservoirs where the water is soft and acid, partly because of acid rain. This water scours the lead from the old lead pipes and tanks that are still found in millions of homes in Scotland and all over Britain. The lead, in a highly digestable form, comes out of the tap. (p.87)
A study by the Greater Glasgow Health Board in the early 1980s pointed out that some ten per cent of all new born babies in Glasgow had more lead in their blood than was considered safe for adults. Lead drunk by mothers is able to cross the placental barrier and so accumulate in the foetus. The more obvious consequences of this process can be still births or children born mentally retarded. The intention is that by 1990 British water will be dosed with lime to counteract the acid. There are also unknown elements such as aluminium washed from soil by acid rain. At present parts of Birmingham. Manchester and South Yorkshire are among areas whose aluminium tap water content is greater than European Community limits.
The damage to European trees has been well documented although there are still arguments over the actual mechanism whereby the damage takes place. West Germany's fir trees have an 87 per cent damage classification with some two thirds considered by foresters to be in the most severe categories. It ought not to be forgotten that food crops are also sensitive, in particular to ozone which has become more widespread in the past ten years. Damage to plants can occur with ozone levels of 50 parts per billion (ppb). In the summer of 1976 (notable for its heat — a prime ingredient in ozone production) levels of 200-260 ppb were recorded. For a factory worker 80 ppb is considered the safety margin for working. A main contributor to ozone is the car with its emissions of nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons. A possible consequence will be that the ozone will act as a "greenhouse", absorbing the sun's radiation and acting as a thermal blanket.
The traditional response to any pollution problem is the concept of disposal through dilution. It is compounded by two attitudes, that of the cheapskate and the optimist. The cheapskate says that there is a mass of water and air and so anything deposited will become insignificant by dilution. The optimist adds that if a problem should occur some future generation will have the technology to deal with it. To add credibility to these attitudes the role of the scientific vacillators is necessary. They propound other theories and hypotheses in order to confuse or more importantly to deny the facts of any one perspective. This suits capitalism well for it means that it need not invest excessive resources in dealing with a problem that is not fully accepted or understood. Ironically there are occasional reversals of the pollution syndrome. During the early years of the Thatcher administration the decline in manufacturing led to a 25 per cent reduction in the amount of sulphur dioxide put into the atmosphere although the CEGB estimate a 30 per cent rise by the end of the century- Such hiccups merely hide the reality of what is taking place:
Today there is more pollution than ever before. It is chemically much more reactive. And its reach has extended from the industrial heartlands of the continent to the most remote comers. There are no refuges. Nowhere is untainted. (p. 128)
The British Electricity Authority stated in 1954 that sulphur dioxide was one of the most harmful of all pollutants. The response has been a recognition of the need for flue gas desulphurisation but this was replaced by the building of big chimneys. Britain has still not been prepared to join the 30 per cent club (those nations committed to a 30 per cent reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions) although a programme of flue gas desulphurisation is to be undertaken. Sulphur dioxide can also be reduced by burning low sulphur coal. Such coal can be found in Scotland and South Wales where British Coal appears to be closing mines as fast as possible. This inconsistency is a direct consequence of the economic demands of capitalism.
We live in a society of misconceived priorities. How do we attach values to the alternative demands of trees, crops, fish, humanity, architecture? The profit system puts all at risk because the treatment of one issue must be made at the priority cost of profit. Even if we deal with sulphur dioxide it is probable that nitrogen oxides will be a greater danger and. in any event the faster growing problem. This will be the next debate for the vacillators. In the meantime the waste remains and kills.
Philip Bentley
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