WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:01.000 [Narrator:] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 00:01.000 --> 00:02.000 [Narrator:] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 00:02.000 --> 00:04.000 [Waves crashing] 00:04.000 --> 00:05.799 [Waves crashing] 00:05.800 --> 00:09.700 He gathered the waters together and let the dry land appear. 00:09.700 --> 00:12.333 [Music] 00:12.333 --> 00:14.599 He created the fish of the sea... 00:14.600 --> 00:19.466 [Water splashing] 00:19.466 --> 00:21.266 and the birds of the air. 00:21.266 --> 00:24.932 [Seagulls squawking] 00:24.933 --> 00:27.899 And he brought man into the world. 00:27.900 --> 00:33.366 [Jet engine] 00:33.366 --> 00:36.366 And man looked around him and decided there was room for improvement. 00:36.366 --> 00:45.566 [Jet engine] 00:45.566 --> 00:48.732 [Airline pilot:] We've got the... uh... 00:48.733 --> 00:56.333 misconception seems to be prevalent that smoke is a local problem. 00:56.333 --> 01:00.866 A man in Town X, he says, we can solve our smoke problem. 01:00.866 --> 01:03.666 We just put the stacks on the downwind side of town. 01:03.666 --> 01:05.266 Well, which town is he talking about? 01:05.266 --> 01:09.232 His town? The town next to him? The town downwind of him? 01:09.233 --> 01:17.999 The other day, we're on a trip from Washington to Houston non-stop, and we take off, we're in the smoke, 01:18.000 --> 01:20.266 we climb up to 31,000, 01:20.266 --> 01:21.899 we stay in the smoke. 01:21.900 --> 01:25.900 So we get into Houston and I run into Mungie, 01:25.900 --> 01:29.900 and he's coming down on a flight out of New York following the same route we came down, 01:29.900 --> 01:34.433 and I said, Mungie, how about the smoke? Did you ever see it so high? I was in it at 31,000. 01:34.433 --> 01:39.133 And he said, I got news for you, neighbor. I was at 35 and I didn't top it either. 01:39.133 --> 01:40.899 So it's not local. 01:40.900 --> 01:43.933 This smoke may have come from, uh... Texas, 01:43.933 --> 01:48.266 it could have come from California, anywhere. 01:48.266 --> 01:55.599 [Beware the Wind] 01:55.600 --> 01:58.100 [Narrator:] Below him for mile after mile, 01:58.100 --> 02:01.600 a dense blanket of smoke obscures the ground, dangerous to him. 02:01.600 --> 02:06.300 [Music] 02:06.300 --> 02:10.266 More dangerous to the man on the ground who's breathing it. 02:10.266 --> 02:12.399 What the man on the ground is breathing today 02:12.400 --> 02:15.033 and what blocks the pilot's vision, 02:15.033 --> 02:16.866 actually consists of many things. 02:16.866 --> 02:18.399 [Fire crackling] 02:18.400 --> 02:21.066 Burning is the main source. 02:21.066 --> 02:23.732 We burn off the land to plant new crops, 02:23.733 --> 02:25.733 new timber, new orchards. 02:25.733 --> 02:28.366 We burn to keep warm. 02:28.366 --> 02:30.432 And we burn to provide our power. 02:30.433 --> 02:36.299 [Train moving] 02:36.300 --> 02:42.766 We burn our way to work every day and to the store and church and the movies. 02:42.766 --> 02:46.232 Cars are power plants, and 80 million of them are in use in the country. 02:46.233 --> 02:52.133 [Music] 02:52.133 --> 02:56.299 In his drive to destroy and to recreate, 02:56.300 --> 02:59.800 man scatters something else into the atmosphere, dust. 02:59.800 --> 03:02.733 [Music] 03:02.733 --> 03:09.599 Crushing, grinding, sifting, cutting, pulverizing, 03:09.600 --> 03:13.233 creating for comfort and well-being and creating dust. 03:13.234 --> 03:16.499 [Music] 03:16.500 --> 03:19.566 The natural sources of pollution are infinite. 03:19.566 --> 03:21.532 We've learned to blend them and transform them. 03:21.533 --> 03:24.599 [...] 03:24.600 --> 03:27.233 Solids are transformed into liquids, 03:27.233 --> 03:29.766 liquids are transformed into gases, 03:29.766 --> 03:32.499 and into the air leaks poison. 03:32.500 --> 03:35.200 Each year, 130 million tons of it. 03:35.200 --> 03:36.633 And often, it kills. 03:36.633 --> 03:43.733 [Music] 03:43.733 --> 03:49.366 If it were evenly distributed across the country, it would cause little ill effect. 03:49.366 --> 03:53.632 But more than half of us live in cities on 1 percent of the land. 03:53.633 --> 04:00.533 [Music] 04:00.533 --> 04:03.233 And the air is not inexhaustible. 04:03.233 --> 04:15.499 [Music] 04:15.500 --> 04:19.466 Of the 93 million miles of space between the earth and the sun, 04:19.466 --> 04:22.166 only the first seven and one-half miles can sustain life. 04:22.166 --> 04:24.332 [Music] 04:24.333 --> 04:27.599 Our envelope of air is thin, almost like the skin of an apple. 04:27.600 --> 04:30.533 [Music] 04:30.533 --> 04:35.899 And then, not all of those seven and one half miles directly above us is usable. 04:35.900 --> 04:39.833 Many pollutants are heavy, and they harbor close to the ground. 04:39.833 --> 04:43.933 [Music] 04:43.933 --> 04:48.299 As in Fairbanks, Alaska, an ice fog holds the pollutants very close to the ground. 04:48.300 --> 04:51.533 [Music] 04:51.533 --> 04:55.199 At the airport, the cold lower air is unable to move upwards. 04:55.200 --> 04:59.500 [Music] 04:59.500 --> 05:03.333 Some cities are located in natural traps. 05:03.333 --> 05:07.699 In Los Angeles, eight million people breathe the poison which they themselves create every day. 05:07.700 --> 05:16.433 [Music] 05:16.433 --> 05:22.133 Many harmful chemical by-products have been identified in the exhaust of the family automobile. 05:22.133 --> 05:23.899 Many of these are toxic. 05:23.900 --> 05:30.966 Even a perfectly tuned engine, purring away under laboratory conditions, wastes at least two percent of the fuel poured into it. 05:30.966 --> 05:35.532 [Music] 05:35.533 --> 05:38.833 Most cars on the road waste much more than that. 05:38.833 --> 05:45.133 A few throw as much as 50 percent of the wasted fuel into the air. 05:45.133 --> 05:49.199 The bulk of your car's exhaust is made up of invisible carbon monoxide. 05:49.200 --> 05:53.066 And most people think of it as dangerous only in an enclosed garage. 05:53.066 --> 05:56.099 [Music] 05:56.100 --> 06:01.200 But scientists have established a maximum level on the amount of carbon monoxide that you can safely breathe. 06:01.200 --> 06:07.300 [Music] 06:07.300 --> 06:14.000 The car that stops and idles bumper to bumper in front of you pumps four times that maximum level directly into your car. 06:14.000 --> 06:25.233 [Music] 06:25.233 --> 06:29.299 Our transportation industry is the greatest contaminator of air in the country, 06:29.300 --> 06:35.866 annually corrupting our lungs with 85 million tons of unburned petroleum. 06:35.866 --> 06:38.399 Here's a particularly dangerous situation. 06:38.400 --> 06:42.600 Not the factory by itself, nor the traffic by itself, 06:42.600 --> 06:44.400 but the two joining forces. 06:44.400 --> 06:47.100 [Music] 06:47.100 --> 06:53.466 The cancer-inducing agent being exhausted by the automobile cannot by itself settle in your respiratory system. 06:53.466 --> 06:57.332 It's too light, and it's immediately exhaled. 06:57.333 --> 07:00.866 But it combines readily with dust, soot and other matter, 07:00.866 --> 07:05.832 and in this form will remain in your body. 07:05.833 --> 07:08.833 America has no monopoly on pollution. 07:08.833 --> 07:11.299 All of us have seen the travel posters of sunlit Europe, 07:11.300 --> 07:15.566 [Music] 07:15.566 --> 07:20.266 and sometime or other, most of us have longed to escape to those old and gentle places, 07:20.266 --> 07:26.199 [Music] 07:26.200 --> 07:34.633 to Paris perhaps, or Brussels, or Rome, or Madrid, or Heidelberg, 07:34.633 --> 07:41.799 or Athens, or Ulm, or Stockholm, 07:41.800 --> 07:44.533 or Amsterdam, Cologne. 07:44.533 --> 07:48.199 [Church bell ringing] 07:48.200 --> 07:57.533 [Music] 07:57.533 --> 08:02.133 This is where beauty is: 08:02.133 --> 08:06.499 The majesty of cathedrals, the charm of old houses, 08:06.500 --> 08:14.700 [Music] 08:14.700 --> 08:18.066 but if we look behind the travel posters, we find this. 08:18.066 --> 08:20.799 [Music] 08:20.800 --> 08:26.633 If we look closer at the water in those fountains, this, 08:26.633 --> 08:30.399 and at those timeless faces, 08:30.400 --> 08:33.700 and the calm water flowing beside the old buildings. 08:33.700 --> 08:38.400 [Music] 08:38.400 --> 08:42.066 The causes are the same in Europe as in the United States. 08:42.066 --> 08:45.899 The demands of industry, the drive to increase the country's wealth. 08:45.900 --> 08:58.800 [Engine noises] 08:58.800 --> 09:01.400 Already in those romantic European capitals, 09:01.400 --> 09:04.833 lights come on early in the day, because of a man-made darkness. 09:04.833 --> 09:08.733 [Music] 09:08.733 --> 09:11.499 The cathedrals, which took generations to build, 09:11.500 --> 09:16.166 which have been the pride of European cities for centuries, are being corroded away, 09:16.166 --> 09:18.399 victims of industrial and automotive waste. 09:18.400 --> 09:30.866 [Music] 09:30.866 --> 09:33.699 More damage has been done since the turn of the century 09:33.700 --> 09:37.300 than the cumulative effect of all the hundreds of years that have gone before. 09:37.300 --> 09:45.133 [Music] 09:45.133 --> 09:49.066 Still deadlier compounds are produced with the help of the sun: 09:49.066 --> 09:51.332 photochemicals. 09:51.333 --> 09:54.733 It's vital to discover the contaminating effect of these on plants and animals. 09:54.733 --> 09:57.966 [Music] 09:57.966 --> 10:04.399 Dr. Brandt of the Robert A.Taft Center in Cincinnati is a highly-qualified researcher in the field of air pollution. 10:04.400 --> 10:07.800 [Music] 10:07.800 --> 10:13.033 [Dr. C.S. Brandt:] This is the photochemical smog problem that you associate with Los Angeles. 10:13.033 --> 10:17.666 Actually, it now occurs all over the country. 10:17.666 --> 10:24.466 This injury that you see on tobacco is due to ozone, one of the photochemical smog components. 10:24.466 --> 10:29.799 And this injury that you see on beans is also ozone. 10:29.800 --> 10:34.700 Now, there are other components in the photochemical smog complex that we have not identified, 10:34.700 --> 10:39.033 and that's the type of injury that you see here on this spinach. 10:39.033 --> 10:40.466 [Narrator:] In the greenhouse, 10:40.466 --> 10:47.132 the poisoning of plants is controlled and studied in an attempt to isolate the sources of man-made blights, 10:47.133 --> 10:51.699 such as this one, that affected the orange grove of Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs of Polk County, Florida. 10:51.700 --> 10:56.366 [Music] 10:56.366 --> 11:02.232 [Mrs. Dobbs:] We saw evidence where the bloom and the little tiny fruit was on the trees, 11:02.233 --> 11:07.499 and it has already dropped off in a month's time or less than that. 11:07.500 --> 11:08.866 We will have no fruit at all. 11:08.866 --> 11:11.166 This happened last year, the year before. 11:11.166 --> 11:14.332 [...] 11:14.333 --> 11:18.299 [Narrator:] Now this grove was planted not long before the Dobbs' planted theirs. 11:18.300 --> 11:22.200 The only difference is that it's 50 miles further away from the source of the Dobbs' trouble. 11:22.200 --> 11:26.500 [Music] 11:26.500 --> 11:28.600 And this is the source: 11:28.600 --> 11:33.066 old dinosaur bones, one of the richest deposits in the country. 11:33.066 --> 11:36.732 ['Phosphate Valley Exposition' billboard] 11:36.733 --> 11:42.299 Recovering phosphate from the skeletal remains of prehistoric animals is big business, 11:42.300 --> 11:44.833 and it's one of the most serious sources of air pollutants. 11:44.833 --> 11:50.499 [Music] 11:50.500 --> 11:53.533 The chemical processes release tons of fluoride gas. 11:53.533 --> 12:02.033 [Music] 12:02.033 --> 12:05.733 The fluoride, carried by the wind across this open country, 12:05.733 --> 12:09.899 settles upon the plants and in the water. 12:09.900 --> 12:15.166 To date, this one cluster of phosphate factories has forced the citrus growers in Polk County 12:15.166 --> 12:18.832 to abandon 25,000 acres of top-quality grove land. 12:18.833 --> 12:22.399 [Music] 12:22.400 --> 12:25.400 More pathetic is the effect on cattle. 12:25.400 --> 12:27.866 They consume the poisoned grass and water, 12:27.866 --> 12:29.699 and the fluorides slowly destroy them. 12:29.700 --> 12:34.766 [Music] 12:34.766 --> 12:37.632 [Rancher:] We have cut those joints open, 12:37.633 --> 12:44.199 and in a normal cow, it's got a juice in there, grease, that oils it, 12:44.200 --> 12:47.100 and you've got smooth places that's run together. 12:47.100 --> 12:54.400 But all that smooth, polished part of a joint becomes rough and grated and there's no oil in it, 12:54.400 --> 12:58.300 and it makes 'em so sore and so stiff, they just can't go. 12:58.300 --> 13:01.466 [Narrator:] Another local landowner commented: 13:01.466 --> 13:07.132 [Landowner:] And the phosphate industry here in Polk County, Florida and surrounding counties 13:07.133 --> 13:12.566 is continually reaching for more land and processing more material, 13:12.566 --> 13:20.399 and increasing the size of its business, not only here, but in northern Florida and North Carolina. 13:20.400 --> 13:24.700 [Narrator:] Air pollutants respect neither plant, animal, nor human being. 13:24.700 --> 13:31.966 Here, along the Monongahela River, 22 miles south of Pittsburgh, is the borough of Donora. 13:31.966 --> 13:35.732 Typical of many industrial towns, Donora had all the ingredients for disaster. 13:35.733 --> 13:42.999 [Music] 13:43.000 --> 13:49.966 It's built low along the river and hemmed in by steep hills that act as effective wind breaks. 13:49.966 --> 13:53.766 Its streets are hilly, with plenty of low pockets to trap the air. 13:53.766 --> 13:58.099 The entire area is one large pollutant source. 13:58.100 --> 14:06.400 Steel mills, sulfuric acid plants, heavy river traffic, and the freight yards. 14:06.400 --> 14:09.566 This is the way it was in October 1948, 14:09.566 --> 14:14.066 when an area-wide temperature inversion closed in. 14:14.066 --> 14:16.699 Hot moist airs hung over the city, 14:16.700 --> 14:20.133 entrapping the cooler stagnant air in the pockets below. 14:20.133 --> 14:22.833 No air could blow out, no air could rise. 14:22.833 --> 14:24.233 Donora was airtight. 14:24.233 --> 14:28.266 [Music] 14:28.266 --> 14:33.666 It took only two days for 6,000 people to become seriously ill, 14:33.666 --> 14:35.432 and for twenty of them to die. 14:35.433 --> 14:42.766 [Music] 14:42.766 --> 14:46.499 Since the disaster, little in Donora has changed. 14:46.500 --> 14:50.533 Exhaustive medical investigation uncovered a significant fact. 14:50.533 --> 14:55.099 No single gas was present in sufficient quantity to have caused these deaths. 14:55.100 --> 14:59.166 But the gas acting in combination with metallic dust clouds from other mills 14:59.166 --> 15:03.066 formed highly irritating and sometimes lethal secondary compounds. 15:03.066 --> 15:06.666 [Music] 15:06.666 --> 15:09.799 With thousands of new chemical compounds being identified, 15:09.800 --> 15:14.233 there's no possible way to foresee the reactions and interactions 15:14.233 --> 15:18.499 as the exhaust gases and dusts of different factories blend together in the skies above our cities. 15:18.500 --> 15:29.133 [Music] 15:29.133 --> 15:34.033 This is Phoenix, traditionally the last resort for lung sufferers. 15:34.033 --> 15:37.866 But Phoenix, according to the Public Health Service National Air Sampling Network, is the second worst city 15:37.866 --> 15:42.566 is the second worst city in the country in concentrations of smoke, fumes and dust. 15:42.566 --> 15:47.266 [Music] 15:47.266 --> 15:51.466 Even Denver, a mile high, has a problem that's potentially critical. 15:51.466 --> 15:54.332 [Music] 15:54.333 --> 16:01.866 Washington, the least industrialized city in the world, is becoming one of the most polluted. 16:01.866 --> 16:03.966 Why? 16:03.966 --> 16:11.199 Washington has a greater concentration of cars than any other city, 4,000 per square mile. 16:11.200 --> 16:16.166 San Francisco looks clean, but recently, it has developed a pollution problem of its own, 16:16.166 --> 16:19.732 almost as bad as Los Angeles. 16:19.733 --> 16:23.899 Many of the gases hanging in the city are invisible. 16:23.900 --> 16:30.066 Its citizens are in just as much danger as those in Phoenix, Washington, and other cities considered clean. 16:30.066 --> 16:34.999 [Music] 16:35.000 --> 16:39.266 Chicago is one city already fighting air pollution. 16:39.266 --> 16:44.099 Combating air pollution is no different than fighting any public menace. 16:44.100 --> 16:51.733 It takes organization, money, strong protests by the local citizens, and a program of tough enforcement. 16:51.733 --> 16:55.299 [Music] 16:55.300 --> 17:01.733 [Pollution control dispatcher:] Air pollution unit 834, 834 come in please. 17:01.733 --> 17:04.566 [Man driving on highway:] 834, over. 17:04.566 --> 17:08.866 [Narrator:] An air pollution violation in Chicago is an offense against the public. 17:08.866 --> 17:14.866 It gets the rapid mechanized attack that a fire or a crime would receive. 17:14.866 --> 17:17.932 Even with an efficient and dedicated control board, 17:17.933 --> 17:19.199 answers are not always easy. 17:19.200 --> 17:22.533 [Music] 17:22.533 --> 17:27.433 [Pollution control officer:] We understand that something like 70,000 of these cars, this and similar type, 17:27.433 --> 17:31.266 are burned in the country each and every year. 17:31.266 --> 17:38.799 This is a complex problem, one which faces not only car dismantlers here in the Chicago area, 17:38.800 --> 17:41.700 but throughout the whole country. 17:41.700 --> 17:43.266 The uh... 17:43.266 --> 17:51.166 at the moment, an economic means of salvaging the steel hasn't been found. 17:51.166 --> 17:56.132 The group representing various car dismantlers, 17:56.133 --> 17:59.833 various governmental agencies, and research organizations 17:59.833 --> 18:11.699 are currently viewing this operation in Chicago with a view towards resolving or attempting to come about a solution to this problem. 18:11.700 --> 18:16.733 [Music] 18:16.733 --> 18:20.266 [Narrator:] At the same time, unusual sources are identified. 18:20.266 --> 18:24.166 Here in the heart of Chicago are its abandoned stockyards. 18:24.166 --> 18:27.766 [Chicago rep:] At one time, we had 40,000 people working in this area. 18:27.766 --> 18:29.699 Today it's a wasteland. 18:29.700 --> 18:33.266 And it's impossible to get new industry to come into our community 18:33.266 --> 18:39.132 because of the thousands of pigeons and because of the odors emanating from the rendering plants in the stockyards area. 18:39.133 --> 18:42.133 [Music] 18:42.133 --> 18:47.599 [Narrator:] William Bullock, who flies for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, 18:47.600 --> 18:50.900 is one of the many professional air samplers at work today. 18:50.900 --> 18:53.100 [Music] 18:53.100 --> 18:59.100 They fly sophisticated devices into the air to sample, classify, measure, and finally record. 18:59.100 --> 19:02.466 [William Bullock:] While flying in the state of Indiana and Illinois, 19:02.466 --> 19:08.332 I have seen the smoke plume from the steel mills in the Chicago-Gary complex 19:08.333 --> 19:13.799 as far out as 140 miles to the southeast of the Lake Michigan area. 19:13.800 --> 19:19.233 [Music] 19:19.233 --> 19:22.799 [Narrator:] There's only one effective way to clean up the air: 19:22.800 --> 19:24.733 Cut off the smoke plume. 19:24.733 --> 19:27.199 It was done here in Fontana, California 19:27.200 --> 19:29.800 by installing electrostatic precipitators. 19:29.800 --> 19:37.000 With the precipitators turned off, it takes only a few minutes for the plant to look exactly like any other steel mill. 19:37.000 --> 19:41.166 The precipitators remove as much as 98 percent of this pollutant material. 19:41.166 --> 19:47.099 [Music] 19:47.100 --> 19:51.766 Installation of these precipitators is a major expense for a large factory, 19:51.766 --> 19:56.032 but fumes are an even greater expense. 19:56.033 --> 20:03.266 Through ignorance and greed, most corporations refuse to admit there is a solution to their waste problem. 20:03.266 --> 20:08.499 There is no pollution problem that present-day technology cannot solve. 20:08.500 --> 20:11.333 [Music] 20:11.333 --> 20:18.999 Here in a Chicago incinerator, part of a city's refuse is being burned without polluting the air. 20:19.000 --> 20:22.366 Wherever you find clean stacks or clean air, 20:22.366 --> 20:27.232 you also find a local citizenry angered and united in action. 20:27.233 --> 20:33.266 Local air pollution control requires more than just one or two office workers. 20:33.266 --> 20:41.499 It requires communications, patrol cars, laboratories, and dedication. 20:41.500 --> 20:43.600 The city which wants to get rid of this, 20:43.600 --> 20:45.133 and this, 20:45.133 --> 20:48.099 ['Danger, fog and smoke' road sign] 20:48.100 --> 20:50.066 and this, 20:50.066 --> 20:54.166 will have to buy the radios, labs, and cars, and the dedication. 20:54.166 --> 20:58.832 [Music] 20:58.833 --> 21:03.199 To survive, a city must learn to meet its problems. 21:03.200 --> 21:07.933 It's expensive, and it demands strong laws and individual effort. 21:07.933 --> 21:10.799 [Music] 21:10.800 --> 21:15.800 Ingenuity and endeavor have created for us the highest material standard of living ever known. 21:15.800 --> 21:22.933 [Music] 21:22.933 --> 21:25.366 We can't go back to the beginning, 21:25.366 --> 21:31.799 but with only a small part of the ingenuity we brought to building our enormous wealth, 21:31.800 --> 21:34.733 we can ensure that the air which gives us life 21:34.733 --> 21:37.133 no longer brings us death. 21:37.133 --> 21:37.133 [An Airlie Production] 21:37.133 --> 21:39.099 [Executive producer: Murdock Head, M.D.] 21:39.100 --> 21:41.466 [Narrated by Robert Preston] 21:41.466 --> 21:43.632 [Photographed by George Voellmer] 21:43.633 --> 21:45.599 [Edited by Charles Francis] 21:45.600 --> 21:47.466 [in cooperation with George Washington University, Airlie Center] 21:47.466 --> 21:50.799 [District of Columbia Medical Society and the American Academy of General Practice] 21:50.800 --> 21:51.800 [...] 21:51.800 --> 21:57.500 [This program was supported in part by a research grant from the division of air pollution, United States Public Health Service] 21:57.500 --> 22:03.100 [...]