For four days, between December 5th and 9th, due to a quirk of the weather pattern, the city

was
entombed in a dense, toxic fog. People were still burning coal for fuel, and low-grade coal at that,
because of wartime austerity. A temperature inversion trapped the smoke from the citys fires,
creating a black cloud in which people could barely find their way down even the most familiar
streets. Some tried to shield themselves film footage from the time shows even dogs being fitted
with masks but most people simply went about their business. It was a city, after all, famous for
its fog and smoke and, as Evelyn wrote, for the noxious effect that these had on human health.
But 1952s fog was far worse than any other in memory. This one killed people quickly enough that
it couldnt be ignored, although we will never know just how many died. In the same week of the
previous year, 1,852 people had died in London; in 1952, that number was 4,703. And the deaths
didnt stop when the weather changed and the fog lifted. Davis and her colleagues analyzed data
from the next several months and found that about 13,000 more people died between December
and March than one would have predicted from historical averages. Many of them succumbed to
pneumonia. The government, she writes, tried to blame a bad flu season. Her detailed analysis
found that explanation simply did not pan out.
Four years after the killer fog struck London, the United Kingdom passed its Clean Air Act. At the
same time, and the air of the city grew noticeably cleaner very quickly. London no longer suffers
from killer fogs. The episode has passed into history, to be brought out at anniversaries for
remembrance.
The debate about whether coal smoke affected human health ended the winter of 1952-53 in
London. On December 8th, cool air from across the English Channel settled over the Thames Valley
and did not move. Within a week more than 3,000 deaths than usual had occurred. The medical
essayist David Bates, then a young physician experienced in wartime medicine, recalls that officials
could not imagine that the environment could produce more civilian casualties in London than any
single incident of the war. In sheer scale this disaster could not be ignored. In one week alone 4,703
people died, compared with 1,852 during the same week the previous year.
Although pea-soupers, as the smogs were known, had been an unavoidable feature of Britain's
major cities for more than a hundred years, the Great Smog of 1952 was the worst.
It also marked something of a turning point: until then, people had accepted smog as a necessary
evil. In Britains coal-fuelled cities, smoke was tolerated for more than a century as a trade-off for
jobs and home comforts, says environmental historian Dr Stephen Mosley. Some even celebrated
air pollution as a tangible measure of Britain's industrial vitality, while the blazing coal fire, with all
its cosy connotations of home and hearth, was a luxury few were prepared to give up.
Smoke was tolerated as a trade-off for jobs and home comforts Stephen Mosley
Despite growing public pressure to deal with the issue, the government's reaction was sluggish.
Initially it even claimed that Decembers high mortality was due to a flu outbreak, and seven
months elapsed before it eventually ordered an inquiry.

Air issues

But, while air pollution from coal may be a thing of past, London's air quality problem hasnt gone
away. And with a recent study suggesting that pollution in the capital claims as many as 9,500 lives
a year, a growing number of scientists, politicians and campaigners believe that on the eve of the
Clean Air Act's 60th anniversary, the UK must once again invoke its pioneering spirit.
The study, which was carried out for Transport for London by Kings College Londons
Environmental Research Group, attributes these premature deaths to two main pollutants: fine
particulates known as PM2.5 and the toxic gas nitrogen dioxide (NO2).
Selective catalytic reduction systems, which are able to remove many of the NOx emissions from
exhausts, are now legally required on many of the most polluting diesel vehicles, and the KCL
study points to a modest decline in concentrations over the past few years.
Newer, less polluting vehicles are being rolled out across the capital. More than 1,200 hybrid buses
now operate in London, including the new diesel-electric Routemaster which according to TFL
produces a quarter of the NOx and particulate emissions of conventional diesel buses. TFL is also
expected to shortly announce the introduction of the worlds first zero-emissions double-decker.

Efforts are also underway to clean up the citys taxi fleet, with TFL recently announcing that from
January 2018, all new taxis licensed in London must emit less than 50g/km of CO2 and have a zeroemission range of 30 miles. Earlier this year Metrocab, a battery-powered vehicle that uses a small
combustion engine as a range extender, became TFLs first licensed zero-emission-capable taxi.
And the London Taxi Company recently unveiled the prototype TX5, a lightweight, batterypowered Black cab that it plans to put into production during 2016.