The technical basis for a size specific paniculate standard

Book reviews As far as Meetham and his collaborators are concerned, there are only three air pollutants of real consequence“grit”, “smoke” and sulfur dioxide. Well, it is admitted that there are other pollutants, and there is one whole paragraph on photochemical smog, which is treated as though it were a peculiar phenomenon of Los Angeles, but these are manifestly the pollutants of consequence. In historical perspective, such an order of priorities is probably not surprising. There is an American saying which, in its laundered form, runs: “When you are up to your armpits in alligators, it is difficult to remember that your aim was to drain the swamp.” Similarly, if you are standing out in a London particular with your nose full of sulfuric acid droplets and your hair covered with fallen grit and soot floes, you are unlikely to get terribly excited about the fact that, when the air is cleared, you will wind up breathing PAN and some excess ozone. However, that is precisely the point at which much of England has now arrived, and there seems little recognition of this fact. Meetham and his collaborators deliver their message as a straight lecture. Breuer, on the other hand, is conversational. Much of his message is brought out in a series of (undoubtedly reconstructed) dialogues with prominant scientists. He attended a number of the major scientific meetings of the 1970s. and. if he could not corral the appropriate scientists there, corresponded with them. The result is a considerably lighter tone, even though neither book is overpoweringly technical. Breuer’s book shows a few signs of its translation from German, more noticeable in the fact that all of the scientists interviewed seemed to use the same vocabulary than as the survival of peculiarly germanic grammatical constructions, although there are a few of those as well. The chief obstacle to understanding of Meetham’s book is not so much scientific detail as the fact that it is concerned with particular hardware-fireplace grates, boilers, and the like-simply unfamiliar to an American reader, and described in peculiarly British terminology. I was surprised and a bit shocked at the shallowness of the genuinely historical aspects of the book by Meetham. Particularly in view of the excellent historical surveys by Brimblecombe, we now have a much more complete view of the progress of air pollution from about the time of the Norman Conquest to the present. This is not only largely passed over, but the old legend about the artificer who was executed for polluting the air of London is perpetuated. I thought Brimblecombe and his students had laid that one to rest permanently. The overall tone of the book is meliorist, and starts with the premise (which I think Brimblecombe has disproved) that the early 1950’s marked the very worst days in England, and that salvation has been wrought by the Clean Air Act. By contrast, Breuer takes a much dimmer view of the future, unless major changes are made in the whole philosophy that standard of living is uniquely related to per capita energy consumption. He feels that any environmental change is undoubtedly for the worse, that the climate changes caused by increasing carbon dioxide are a catastrophe only exceeded by that from the proliferation of nuclear energy. At the same time, he is at least cosmopolitan enough to realize that a slow down in energy growth cannot be imposed on the developing countries in the same measure as it is imposed on the industrial West. In the end, he comes down on the quite reasonable side of pluralism in energy development. Along the way, he is perhaps a bit uncritical in accepting the worst possible outcome of current trends, or purported trends, in atmospheric composition. In particular, it appears that he has greatly overrated the secular increase in nitrous oxide. Overall, his book has remarkably few typographical errors, although he seems to have transformed Lamont Cole into Cole Lamont. Meetham’s book is by no means as clear of typographical problems, probably the worst being a transformation of quite reasonable figures for pollutant concentrations in micro-

12x7

grams per cubic meter suddenly appearing as the same numbers, but given as milligrams per cubic meter! The other errors spotted were simply misspellings that probably do not seriously threaten understanding. Both books have a certain amount of supplementary material, variously as bibliography, footnotes, tables and. in Breuer’s case, a brief glossary. Both have modest indices. Breuer uses few half-tones; Meetham uses more, but they are very muddy in reproduction. Thus, we have here a study in contrasts. Meetham gives a rather academic popular lecture, virtually restricted to the past 30 years or so, somewhat inaccurate prior to that time, and with almost no aspect of looking ahead. The real center of gravity of the discussion is probably the 1960’s. when the skies began to clear, but the real problems were still the old ones-the elhuents of coal combustion. Meetham’s hero is clearly the various acts of parliament that make up the contemporary Clean Air Act. Breuer looks from the iormation of the earth to at least the middle of the next century. and generally concludes that we can survive ifwe act sensibly. Probably Breuer’s worst omission is his lack of any acquamtante with the work of Lovelock, which would nicely have complimented his arguments and, perhaps, made them somewhat more coherent. He is certainly less polemical in his writing than Steven Schneider, though perhaps also a trifle less lively (though some ofthe latter probably may be with his translator-it is difficult to know). There are a number of issues that look perpetually just below the surface of the American air pollution scene. One of these, continuously present for at least the last 5 or IO years without ever surfacing, has been a return to coal as a fuel for home heating. Should this eventuate. than Meetham’s remarks on the subject will be useful guidance. Before that time. I have some difficulty in imagining much of an American audience for the book. It is simply too, too British. On the other hand, if the colleges and universities in the U.S. are still offering nontechnical courses in “environment” -~there was a big push for this in the early 1970s. but I have no idea whether they still survive-then the book by Breuer would be acceptable collateral reading if it were balanced by a reading of Lovelock’s Gaia. JAMES P. Lopot. JR.

Ozone/Oxidants: Interactions with the Total Environment II, APCA Specialty Conference, SP-32, Air Pollution Control Association, P.O. Box 2861, Pittsburgh, PA 15230, U.S.A., 1980, x + 539~~. Price $25.00 (members): $25.00 (nonmembers). TheTechnical Basis for a Size Specific ParticulateStandard, Parts I & II, APCA Specialty Conference, SP-36, Air Pollution Control Association, P.O. Box 2861, Pittsburgh, PA 15230, U.S.A., 1980, 336 pp. Price $12.00 (members): $15.00 (nonmembers). One of the great sins of science teaching in the primary and secondary schools of this country, and perhaps to a slightly lesser degree in the undergraduate courses of our colleges and universities, is the presentation of science as a sort ofjait accompli-all the loose ends tucked in, all the important questions answered, and the roll of the saints full up. I have written elsewhere on the religious aspects of science, so I will here only point out the tendency to wait until one is a graduate student (i.e. until one is already committed to apprenticeship in the priesthood) before it is gradually revealed how many gaps remain. Even so, it is my impression that this is done subtly enough that relatively few ever grasp the vast size of the terra incognira; a witness to this is the large percentage of scientists who devote their careers to the equivalent, in their respective fields, of computing two more significant figures in the existing best value of pi.

128X

l3ook rev,ews

Even I, at my age, can occasionally be shocked IO discover the size of the areas of ignorance that surround us. I find myself even more profoundly shocked, in some areas 01 science that I monitor only intermittently. to find, not only the size of the areas of ignorance. but also their static nature. An example that comes to mind is cloud seeding; I was m that field from roughly 1952 to 1955. In 1953 I had the privilege 01 a lengthy conversation with Peter Debye. Although he was not active in the field, he had obviously been giving the matter considerable thought more than I had as a supposed young researcher in it. During that time he spun out a whole series ol what he considered to be crucial questions. These are still unanswered. In the early 1960s. I remember wrltmp something to the effect that ethical considerations would always limit the degree of experimental study of air pollutant elrects on humans. and to some degree mhiblt studies on animals. However. 1 pointed out that there were no societies for the preventmn ofcruelty to plants. and that therefore it should be relatively easy to perform experiments on plants. A recent review of the literature. however. suggests that there has been no great enthusiasm for such studies: in at leas1 a number (11 areas. there have been essentially no new tindmgs on airborne phytotoxicants in the past decade. While some of these continuing gaps undoubtedly reflect the convoluted pohtics of research funding. at least some of It probably contmues to derive from an impression that the answers are known. the tinal playing out of the inltlal sin of plcturlng science as a ttdl package. Given this as a startmg point. II IS unfortunate that the two volumes under review are rather too spcclalized to use as case studies in. say, high school (A good science writer could certainly turn them into exactly that, since the} cover two 01 the untidiest pieces of an untidy field.) Both report on socalled “specialty conferences” of the Air Pollution Control Association. and both tend, to the knowing eye, to make clear on how small a base of demonstrated fact the whole e&lice of air pollution science and technology. not to mention air pollution control. is really built. They further display the symptoms that accompany this state of factual malnutrition. speakers talking right past each other. In thevolume on ozone and oxidants. for example. one speaker apparently demohshes the notlon that there are any important physiologIcal ell’ects of Ozone below about 0.25 ppm. while a subsequent speaker casually refers to 0.2 ppm of ozone as well above the onset ol serious physical symptoms. What is perhaps unfortunate is that there IS no way that the subsequent dIscussIon in the corridors could be Included; I have a mental picture of some quite sprightly and somewhat less polite discussion ensumg after the formal sessions. In the case of the conference on particulate matter. I was present for part of the time. and can certainly report such discusslons as occurring. Of the two volumes. I found the one on ozone and oxidant, the more interesting, primarily because ofthe structures of the respective conferences. It addresses the question that many hare rdlscd. IO dale Hithou rcdll!, ,;ltlbfaclory ilnbwer~: ~b “photochemical smog”a single sort of beast. totally described by data collected in Los Angeles. or are there several species that occur m different parts of the country” My own experience of occasional high-ozone days in Denver with subfreezing temperatures is certainly suggestlvc. and at least some of the data collected in the Houston area and reported here would lend weight to the argument. On the other hand. other data seem to add weight IO the other pan of the scales. The question remains unresolved The Proceedings of the conference on particulate matter are less fun because the two separate conferences on which 11 was based were predominantly of a workshop nature. and agenda for whole days arc compressed mto one or IWO page reports b) workshop rapporteurs. In addition, the same rapporteurs seemed lo have had an urge to smooth over the sometimes strenuous differences of opinion that accompanied the workshop sessions. As a result. one needs to know the field

stdl better in order to spot the areas of controversy In addition, I will plead guilty to a certain amount of prejudice against this volume, since the discussion is dominated by the sort of bad usage that, in the past, the 1JSEPA has spawned “particulate” used as a noun; conlined and unconfined sources referred to as, respectively,“traditional”and “nontradilional“ sources. apparently on the grounds that nontraditional sources are more traditional than traditional ones. and the like. I will also have to admit that there are at lest a ctluple 01 very important papers in this volume, in terms ofkc-ping matters in perspective. For example. there apprb I(’ be the lirst realistic estimate of the contribution of airborne ,011 to the total loading of suspended particulate matter in r*estern cities. There is also a comparison of the British scale with TSP values in the U.S. that is far more extensive than anythmg prebious, and It clearly demonstrates the dispdrity Ixtween the two measures. However, there are simply a jc.1 more papers in the volume on oxidants. and the dlsparalc conclusions are easier to find. As 1s customary in this series. the books are 01 n umform SIX and roughly uniform format. produced br oll’set from orlgmal typed copy. One rather nice touch in this serlc\ is the reproduction of a photograph of the author in those cases in \\hich the author submits such a photograph. SubJecr lndlcea are provided. but they are fairly superficial. Bindmg IS good: If anything. II may be more durable than the subject matter. On the other hand. considering the slou rate of real prcgress 111 this field. that statement may be unduly optimistic What we have here, then, are a pair of volumes thar alford snapshots of the disarray of two aspects of our field. In both cases as of a year or two ago. If either covers an are,, ~~I‘your concern. It is worth at least looking through the rolume: no matter what you believe on the subject. you can probably tind at least one paper that will support your prejudices. as well as one that would contradict them diametrically. On ihe other hand, if your only interest is in eternal verities, it i:. unlikel! that you will find any here if they are present they arc certainly unrecognized as such as this time.

Emission Control Tecbwlogy for hdustrial Boiin, Pollution Technology Review No. 74, Energy Technology Review No. 62. edited by A. E. Miller, Noyes Data Corporation. Mill Road at Grand Ave., Park Ridge, NJ 07656. U.S.A.. 1981. ix + 405 pp. Price $48.00.

‘This column has periodically remarked on the products 01 this particular publisher. The books are substantial. modcrately expensive, but undoubtedly perform a very useful service in moving numbers of Government reports and contractor reports out of the “gray literature” into the public domain. Such products are no threat to contenders for the Nobel prize for literature, or even (sullied as it may be at the moment), the Pulitzer prize. Frankly, the task of producing “Reader’s Digest” versions of contractor reports seems to be among the more onerous tasks that one could undertake. Nevertheless. we must remain grateful to those who do them. I have never had the opportunity of comparing, side by side, one of these condensed versions with the original: II seems unlikely that this will produce a silk purse from a sow’s ear. To use another contemporary cliche’. garbage in, garbage out. However, there is evidence that the responsible editors tend to reject at least the most obvious garbage, and thus In general the volumes in this series report work that is reasonably credible. The present volume used as sources live contractor reports to the USEPA. all published in late 1979. There are five corresponding chapters, covering flue gas desulfurization. flue gas nitrogen oxides removal. combustion modtfkation