The Black Fog

Beschreibung

The air itself became a weapon. The story of the week when London suffocated, and how the tragedy birthed the modern environmental movement.
In December 1952, a high-pressure weather system trapped the smoke from millions of coal fires over London. Within hours, visibility dropped to zero. By the time the "Great Smog" lifted five days later, 12,000 people were dead. Historian Arthur Penn reconstructs this suffocating tragedy in "The Black Fog." Penn vividly describes a city where cinemas closed because audiences couldn't see the screen, and where funeral directors ran out of coffins. He exposes the initial government cover-up, where politicians blamed the deaths on influenza to protect the coal industry. The book documents the turning point: how this disaster shocked the world and led directly to the Clean Air Act of 1956, the first modern environmental legislation. "The Black Fog" is a grim reminder of the price of industrialization and a testament to the fact that the right to breathe clean air was written in the blood of Londoners.

Autor*in

Arthur Penn
Author

Themen in »The Black Fog«

History Environment London 1952 Disaster Pollution Politics

Stimmen zu »The Black Fog«

Details

Link teilen