Poisonous skies : acid rain and the globalization of pollution / Rachel Emma Rothschild.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rothschild, Rachel Emma, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Acid rain--Research--History.

Acid rain.

Acid rain--Political aspects.

Acid rain--Environmental aspects.

Air--Pollution--Research--History.

Air.

Physical Description:

VIII, 335 s. ill.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The climate change reckoning looms. As scientists try to discern what the Earth's changing weather patterns mean for our future, Rachel Rothschild seeks to understand the current scientific and political debates surrounding the environment through the history of another global environmental threat: acid rain. The identification of acid rain in the 1960s changed scientific and popular understanding of fossil fuel pollution's potential to cause regional-and even global-environmental harms. It showed scientists that the problem of fossil fuel pollution was one that crossed borders-it could travel across vast stretches of the earth's atmosphere to impact ecosystems around the world. This unprecedented transnational reach prompted governments, for the first time, to confront the need to cooperate on pollution policies, transforming environmental science and diplomacy. Studies of acid rain and other pollutants brought about a reimagining of how to investigate the natural world as a complete entity, and the responses of policy makers, scientists, and the public set the stage for how societies have approached other prominent environmental dangers on a global scale, most notably climate change. Grounded in archival research spanning eight countries and five languages, as well as interviews with leading scientists from both government and industry, Poisonous Skies is the first book to examine the history of acid rain in an international context. By delving deep into our environmental past, Rothschild hopes to inform its future, showing us how much is at stake for the natural world as well as what we risk-and have already risked-by not acting.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Acronyms

Introduction: A Rain of Ashes

1. Creating a Global Pollution Problem

2. The Science of Acid Rain

3. Energy Industry Research and the Politics of Doubt

4. Pollution across the Iron Curtain

5. Environmental Diplomacy in the Cold War

6. An Environmental Crisis Collides with a Conservative Revolution

7. Acid Rain and the Precautionary Principle

8. A Warning Bell for a Fossil Fuel Future

Epilogue: The Climate Change Reckoning

Acknowledgments

Notes

Sources

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Feb 2020)

ISBN:

9780226634852

022663485X

OCLC:

1107879494