Talk:Great Smog of London

Causes of deaths

It says that because of the smog, ambulance services had to be suspended. What is the proof that many of these supposed deaths weren't attributable to people who were injured or ill from unrelated diseases who were unable to seek medical care because of lack of ambulances? Or people who were injured in traffic accidents due to the reduced visibility? There must have been many, which would either mean that a substantial number of the reported deaths were not due to actual lung conditions caused by the smog, or that there must have been even more death that are not included in the count. I'd like a breakdown of the information they base these claims on. It's kind of like when there is a big blizzard, some people may freeze to death, but many more die because they have a heart attack or something and can't make it to a hospital, or starve to death because they are trapped, or asphyxiate due to snow clogging ventilation or faulty heating equipment, or are killed in traffic accidents due to the bad roads. All of these deaths are typically considered as part of the blizzards "death toll", but the blizzard didn't directly kill most of them. I see no reason that this "Great Smog" wouldn't have a similar effect..45Colt 20:09, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

It does say that 100,000 people who were in the area "were made ill by the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract."

2600:6C4E:1200:1E85:984E:F9AE:AD6D:15AC (talk) 03:24, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

for solid figures showing that an atypical increase in mortalities occurred in the months after the event see the extensive references in the article itself, particularly Stone, R. 'Counting the Cost of London's Killer Smog' Science 13 Dec 2002: Vol. 298, Issue 5601, pp. 2106-2107 DOI: 10.1126/science.298.5601.2106b

Jamesmcardle 02:45, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Great Smog, Smoke, or Fog. London or 1952

I changed the lede from "Great Smog of 1952" to the article title: "Great Smog of London" or "Great Smog of 1952". What is the wp:COMMONNAME for this event? Going by dubious Google wp:OR. Quotes included in search, first number is "about" hits from search:

• 89,000 "great smog of london"
• 36,600 "great smoke of london"
• 45,400 "great smoke" london

Anyone which to chime in or open a wp:Request for comment? Jim1138 (talk) 07:58, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I have never known this event referred to by the article name until seeing it here. I've always known it as the 'great fog/smog of 1952’ (I was born in 1955). I wonder if 'great smog of London' is what Americans called it, which would account for the large number of Google hits? --Ef80 (talk) 11:52, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Should the title include the year 1952?

I've read the various discussions/opinions above about using the words smog/fog etc in the title. Another question is whether, for consistency, the title should contain the year 1952? Consider the other articles about 20th-century pollution disasters commonly grouped with the Great London Smog of 1952:

• 1930 Meuse Valley fog
• 1939 St. Louis smog
• 1948 Donora smog
• 2013 Eastern China smog

So, smog or fog, wouldn't it make sense for this one to be "1952 Great London *****"?

45154james (talk) 10:39, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

There was the usual Covid/Climate Change type scepticism - this time about the role of industrial pollution

e.g. The Times newspaper argued that the phenomenon was both natural and well precedented. “The fogs are ancient Britons,” it opined. “They met the boat when the ancestors of Boadicea landed. Taking advantage of a northern island, rich in rivers and diversity of soils, they roam about on their little cat feet as freely as they did before anyone had heard of smoke abatement.” - www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/countryside/9727128/The-Great-Smog-of-London-the-air-was-thick-with-apathy.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.210.174 (talk) 10:47, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Very interesting. There is a very long history of "air-pollution denial", both before the Great London Smog (when people used to argue that coal-caused air pollution had disinfecting properties, which is documented in one of the recent books about air pollution - Fuller, Smedley, Woodford et al - can't remember which one) and since (see for example https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/16/modern-air-is-too-clean-the-rise-of-air-pollution-denial). It might make a very interesting article all of its own, if it meets all the usual criteria (WP:GNG etc). 45154james (talk) 11:10, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

It's Woodford's book, p.74: "... dogged air-pollution denial by the coal industry – the idea that soot particles were a disinfectant – typified by one magnate, Colonel W.P. Rend of Pittsburgh, who went so far as to declare coal ‘a benefit to public health’. (That was, in fact, a widely held view well into the 19th century, and its origins can be traced back to the ancient Greek miasma theory.)" 45154james (talk) 11:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Cleaning up of external links/refs

I've cleaned and tidied up the "Further reading" and "External links" sections per the edit summaries in the article. There is one remaining "External link" (Edinburgh) that I am minded to delete. It seems a useful page, but it was written as part of a student project, it lacks citations, and it seems to me to fail on WP:ELNO - specifically, that if the info is that useful, it should also be in the article. Would welcome further thoughts on whether this should be kept or ditched (or someone please ditch it if they feel it is definitively out of place). 45154james (talk) 06:17, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to be bold and remove this Edinburgh link for the reasons I gave above. It seems to me the only really useful bits are the quoted material from the classic Wilkins research (the famous three-peak chart showing correlation of deaths with sulphur dioxide and smoke and the table showing pollution concentrations from Wilkins, 1954) - and that should be included in our own article, copyright issues permitting. But I'll save the URL here just in case.

45154james (talk) 07:05, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

During further cleaning up of citations, I came across this one as a support for the statement that London suffered with dirty air since the 13th century.

"Graunt, John, 1620–1674; Petty, William, Sir, 1623–1687 (1662), Natural and political observations mentioned in a following index, and made upon the bills of mortality [microform] / by John Graunt ... ; with reference to the government, religion, trade, growth, ayre, diseases, and the several changes of the said city, Printed by Tho. Roycroft for John Martin, James Allestry, and Tho. Dicas"

Unclear to me how that supports the statement it was linked to, since I believe it's a record of deaths in the 17th century [see https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5014]. So I've deleted it. If whoever introduced that would like to restore it, perhaps they could also kindly make clear how it supports the text it attaches to? Thank you. 45154james (talk) 08:07, 2 April 2023 (UTC)