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History of Mans pollution of Earth

"We have a problem Houston"
The famous phrase as uttered by Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell, when an onboard explosion looked likely to have dire consequences for the inhabitants.

The phrase may be applicable to today's position on the state of our planet. This phrase has greater meaning when considering that at the time of the statement, the people involved had very little idea of what was wrong but knew something was not right. The problem we face today on our planet is 'what is the problem'? To solve that it helps to understand how it arose in the first place and the following is a look into that.

The species of Man has been on the planet for 250,000 years or more and during that time the planet has seen many climate changes. The climate has continually been in a state of flux and it would be unlikely that the human population caused any effect. However, today we can see how Man's increased activity correlates to changes in the worlds atmosphere and usage of the planets resources.

The above graph indicates the worldwide growth of the human population. The overall fact is that the last few hundred years have seen a massive explosion of the population in comparison with the preceding thousands of years. When we compare this to the following charts showing the levels of firstly CO2 and then Methane, we see similar rapid growth in those gases increase within the environment.

Naturally, it is very easy to conclude that because the graphs show similar patterns, that they are connected. Indeed, when other elements and gases are examined they too show marked increases similar to the above graphs. But population growth alone can not explain these marked rises. The population may well have grown twice as much as the above graphs show and although there would have been some environmental effect, it is unlikely to have caused such dramatic rises. There has to be a further cause.

The most likely cause of these increases is the onset of the industrial age. This started to take effect in the mid 1700's as man developed more productive machines, most notably the steam engine. Until then, man had relied on his own energy for the power needed in work along side the use of animals such as horses and oxen. They were the engines of the vehicles then used, such as carts for moving everything from building materials to people themselves as well as pulling the plough and other farm implements. Agriculture was the main employer and although moderately sized cities existed, the population still predominantly lived in rural areas.

Wind and water were the other distinct forms of energy and had been in use for several thousand years; driving mills for grinding corn and pumping devices for water irrigation and supply.

By and large, the environment was in reasonable harmony although forests were being cleared for agriculture and used for fuel and construction. Man though had some forethought in this and there still exists hardwood forests planted out by men who had the foresight to think ahead to the needs of future generations need for quality wood in practices such as shipbuilding.

This all ceased to be when the steam engine came along. The first requirement was a fuel to drive the steam boiler. Charcoal, derived from wood, was the first choice but this was quickly superseded with coal. As entrepreneurs became more successful and companies grew in size, as did their output of goods. In turn, the demand for more steam engines grew thus requiring ever greater supplies of coal. The circle of more, more and more, had begun.

The Industrial Revolution was led by mechanisation of the textile industry in Great Britain but it soon spread to other industries and countries. Within a hundred years most countries had access to steam power. The amount of different business practices that employed steam power was also becoming endless. The steel making industry thrived as not only were there improvements on the machinery being used to form it but also the advances in its chemical composition allowed steel to be used in a far wider range of applications.

We also see that as the advances in science take effect there becomes a need for more basic resources. Mining and extraction of ground elements proliferates with everything from guano (bird poo!) to diamonds being sourced from around the world.

Fundamental to this growth is the need for more people. Families grow in size and despite a high mortality rate amongst infants compared to today, medical knowledge is improving and survival rates begin to improve. More people leads to the need of more resources. New homes have to be built to house the workers (admittedly of a poor nature though there was the odd example of benevolence and philanthropic worker care) and food requirements have to rise to feed them all.

Very few things in life expand at such a rate without some knock on effect. In the rush to expand, no one took to much notice of the health of the world. It would have been evident to some that the environment was suffering in that rivers were becoming less than welcoming places to be as they drained the effluent of human living and business left-overs down their channels. The effect of burning coal, now the primary energy source, would have left its mark by the way of toxic fumes along with the more obvious soot deposits. Yet business' were loathe to act upon this as there was no viable alternative and those who controlled such issues had very little desire to reduce their profits.

It was not until the mid 1900's that the environmental issues really began to come to the fore and people started to take note. The nuclear age had began to come into effect and the bizarre 'clean' power that nuclear offered at least showed what damage fossil fuels were doing to the environment. We are now looking seriously at pollution problems and how to clean them up and avoid them altogether. It is almost daily news to find one corporate or another being put under pressure to clean up its companies actions and this is set to continue for the foreseeable future.

Did the expansion of industry need to have such an adverse effect on the environment?

No. There were forms of power around during the rise of the Industrial Revolution that would have sufficed, much as there is today. What did not exist then was the knowledge to harness it. Faraday did not discover how to generate a practical electrical current until 1831 which dispelled one possible alternative to steam (and coal would have likely still been the source to drive the generator, aka James Watt). Water and wind did not produce enough power constantly or reliably to enable an effective power supply and animal power would have been cost prohibitive. Steam driven by coal was the only viable alternative and unfortunately for the environment, it was in plentiful supply.

Had coal been a more costly resource then the evolution of industry may have been far cleaner. For one, steam boilers would have become much more efficient so as to keep costs down on the used fuel. Water power would have likely had a much better investment though some might argue the dams and reservoirs would have had a detrimental effect on the environment; it would have been less damaging than the effects of coal burning.

Water power was already in use and drove many cotton mills long into the industrial age. However, there was always the problem of ensuring a good head of water. This would have required huge dams. These would of not been beyond the scope of the engineers in that time but due to the cheap price of coal, no effort was put into developing greater hydro power.

It was not just cheap fuel that created the pollution problem. Early machinery was clumsy and heavy. Mostly this was due to early materials such as cast iron not being so strong as latter day steel compounds, thus necessitating in machinery design being big and beefy to do what was required. Not until around 1850 did good quality steel become available so as to make machines using smaller parts.

Coal and steam was the driving force behind the whole world. Ships, vehicles, machines; all driven by steam. Then in the late 1800's, the internal combustion engine began to make its mark. Although various designs had been around since the beginning of the 1800's (and earlier in crude forms), it was the German Nikolaus Otto whose design set the ball rolling when he designed a competent engine in 1862.

Over the following decades the internal combustion engine furthered it's development until eventually the steam engine became defunct as a commercial proposition in the 1920's and 1930's..

Once again the world faced another dilemma. Mechanised transportation became available to the masses. The fuel to do this was once again a fossil based fuel in the form of crude oil. Just like coal at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, oil was in abundant supply and cheap enough to make steam/coal redundant.

Oil and coal became the predominant fuels in driving electricity generators adding further pollution as it was burnt to the environment. Business and homes used both fuels to heat homes and gas fuels came popular in the late 1800's for lighting and then later for heating.

With little understanding of the effects of pollution, fossil fuels were allowed to run unchecked until the clean air acts started to be introduced in the second half of the 1900's.

The modern day sees Man looking at power supply in a much more environmental fashion. However, such now is the demand for energy that although progress is being made in alternative, renewable and green energy forms, their output can not yet match demand. Also, there is a huge industry behind fossil fuel supply and they have not yet shown any great willingness to cut back on their output. Their output will only be tamed by demand and the move to greener energy by the end user is gaining momentum be it at somewhat slower pace than ideal.

We now have a better understanding of our environment and perhaps it has taken the lessons learnt from the last 250 years to realise that. Corporations appetite for energy is growing constantly and as developing countries improve there economies, the demand for yet more energy is unrelenting. It can only be hoped that as these new economies enter their own industrial revolutions that lessons from the past are learnt. In some ways it would be unfair to expect emerging nations to not bring themselves into line with established economies and to that end, the latter may have to make some sacrifices either technologically or economically.

Therein will be the hardest challenge.

Jim Lovell actually said "Houston, We've had a problem". Would it not be nice that maybe one day we can say we can also say, 'we had a problem'.