**The Story of Smog: How Los Angeles Broke Free from its Nasty Scourge**

It makes your eyes watery, your nose run. Why are you running? It irritates your throat (screaming) it makes you wheeze (wheezing). ♪ Smoke weed every day. ♪ - No not that, it's smog.

Los Angeles residents know all about the ugly brown haze that's tarnished Tinseltown in the past. How did the city break the grip of this nasty scourge and pull itself back from the smoggy abyss? Grab your inhaler, adjust your gas mask, and stockpile some Visine 'cause this is the Story of Smog.

All cities have some degree of air pollution. But places like Denver, Mexico City, and Los Angeles have it tougher because of their similar layout. LA is situated on a low-lying coastal plain, surrounded by high mountains. It's like a giant fish bowl. Because of these geographical features, Los Angeles is at the mercy of a phenomenon called temperature inversion.

But what's a Temperature Inversion? During the day, the radiation from the sun heats up the ground and that hot air rises, cools off, comes back down and heats up from the ground again. It's convection, creates a flow of air. Once the sun goes down, it stops heating the ground and the ground stops heating the air above it. So the hot air left over from the day just takes off as cold air swoops in.

But in a place surrounded by mountains, that hot air gets trapped - a temperature inversion occurs where air closer to the ground cools and gets trapped. It's got nowhere to go; the warm air just sitting above it keeps pollutants from escaping into the stratosphere. Got it? Great!

This anomaly took a frightening turn on July 26, 1943, when a dense brown fog appeared suddenly and dramatically over the city. This mysterious cloud immediately made people's eyes sting, their nose run, and their throats burn. Visibility was cut to just three city blocks, and blinded motorists had to swerve their way through the thick, soupy mess.

For years Angelenos had coped with an irritating haze, and now it seemed as though it had reappeared in a much stronger and forceful form. Everyone panicked - it's gotta be a chemical attack by the Japanese. The surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor was just two years earlier; what else could it be? Little did they know, this was LA's first encounter with smog.

LA officials blamed a local gas plant that was manufacturing synthetic rubber ingredients and public pressure shut the plant down. But the smog continued, and it got worse. Everyone from polished businessmen to sweaty cab drivers hacked by the tens of thousands, as the menacing fog deprived them of fresh air.

The mayor of LA foolishly vowed to eliminate the mysterious haze in four months but it would actually take several years to identify the problem. In October that same year, a Smoke and Fumes Commission was set up and believing this air pollutant was a mixture of smoke and coastal fog, the term smog became popular. Some even referred to it as

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- It makes your eyes wateryour nose run.- Why are you running?- It irritates your throat,(screaming)it makes you wheeze.(wheezing)♪ Smoke weed every day. ♪- No not that, it's smog.Los Angeles residents knowall about the ugly brown hazethat's tarnished Tinseltown in the past.How did the city break thegrip of this nasty scourgeand pull itself backfrom the smoggy abyss?Grab your inhaler, adjust your gas maskand stockpile some Visine 'causethis is the Story of Smog.(upbeat music)All cities have somedegree of air pollution.But places like Denver, Mexico Cityand Los Angeles have it tougherbecause of their similar layout.LA is situated on alow-lying coastal plain,surrounded by high mountains.It's like a giant fish bowl.Because of these geographical features,Los Angeles is at themercy of a phenomenoncalled temperature inversion.But what's a Temperature Inversion?- During the day, theradiation from the sunheats up the groundand that hot air rises,cools off, comes back down and heats upfrom the ground again.It's convection, creates a flow of air.Once the sun goes down, itstops heating the groundand the ground stopsheating the air above it.So the hot air left over from the day justtakes off as coll air swoops in.But in a place surrounded by mountains,that hot air gets trapped,a temperature inversion occurs where aircloser to the groundcools and gets trapped.It's got nowhere to go,the warm air just sitting above itkeeps pollutants from escapinginto the stratosphere.Got it? Great!- This anomaly took afrightening turn on July 26, 1943when a dense brown fog appearedsuddenly and dramaticallyover the city.This mysterious cloud immediatelymade people's eyes sting,their nose run, and their throats burn.Visibility was cut tojust three city blocksand blinded motoristshad to swerve their waythrough the thick, soupy mess.For years Angelenos hadcoped with an irritating hazeand now it seemed asthough it had reappearedin a much stronger and forceful form.Everyone panicked, it'sgotta be a chemical attackby the Japanese.The surprise air attackon Pearl Harbor was justtwo years earlier, what else could it be?Little did they know, thiswas LA's first encounterwith smog.LA officials blamed a local gasplant that was manufacturingsynthetic rubber ingredientsand public pressure shut the plant down,but the smog continued.And it got worse.Everyone from polishedbusinessmen to sweaty cab drivershacked by the tens ofthousands, as the menacing fogdeprived them of fresh air.The mayor of LA foolishlyvowed to eliminatethe mysterious haze in four monthsbut it would actually take several yearsto identify the problem.In October that same year,a Smoke and Fumes Commission was set upand believing this airpollutant was a mixtureof smoke and coastal fog,the term smog became popular.Some even referred to it as "the beast".The war came to a close,but the problem continued.LA Angels fans struggledto see players on the fieldduring a game.With pleas from red-eyed,raspy-voiced citizens,Governor Earl Warren, signed a law in 1947setting up the Los AngelesCounty Air Pollution Control District.The first of its kind, thisorganization was taskedwith regulating the oil refineries,power plants and steel mills,the industries everyone thoughtwas the obvious culprits.As the brown fog persisted,city officials rode blimpsover the city, trying to spot the sourceof the suspicious haze.What was going on in LA?Other cities were copingwith their own air pollution.Pittsburgh, and other citieslike it on the East Coastwere mostly dealing withpollutants from burning coalbut LA didn't even usemuch coal, if at all.It wasn't until the early1950s that the 'gas attack'mystery of '43 was finally solved.There was a chemistworking at the Cal Technamed Arie Haagen-Smit.He had been studyingpineapples and fine winesfor a few years, but in 1948,he chose to shift gears.Farmers in LA Countycomplained that air pollutionfrom refineries damagedtheir crops by bleachingand discoloring the leaves.This was something not seenin other parts of the country.So, Arie's starting-pointwas investigatingthe damaged plants.He knew that LA smog was not like the airpollution found back East.There it was composedmainly of sulfur compoundsand soot from burning coal and heavy oils.He also noticed that despiteearly smoke control measures,citizens still sufferedfrom eye irritationon smoggy days and continued to smella bleach-like odor in the air.Arie enlisted the help of Peg Brunelle,a chief chemist for the LA CountyAir Pollution Control District.Having experienced theeffects of smog first-hand,Peg was ready to solve this mystery.The pair sealed plants inairtight containers to huntfor the oxidizing elements in smogthat was causing so much damage.They put in the legwork,driving to local Southlandrefineries and gathering airsamples in five-liter flasks.Arie reconfigured his oldpineapple-testing deviceand blew a few hundredcubic feet of polluted airthrough cooling traps and whatcame out was several ouncesof vile-smelling, nasty brown sludge.He put it in a bottle, andcalled it Jagermeister, the end.I'm kidding, it was smog.Ozone, sulfur dioxide,carbon monoxide and nitrogenwere all revealed in the liquified smog.This explained the bleachyodor that people smelled.Wait, I thought Ozone was way up high?- Well, who's this guy?Okay ready.Well there's good ozone and bad ozone.Good ozone is thestratosphere extending upwardabout 6 miles to 30 miles.It's the layer that's natural, untaintedand protects life on Earth byfiltering harmful sun rays.We don't have to breath it, it's all good.Bad ozone, or ground-levelozone, is harmful,it doesn't belong down here,it reacts with the aldehydes and ketonesand has other harmful agents likesulfur dioxide, carbonmonoxide, and nitrogen.- The ozone found in theexperiment at Arie's labposed a real head-scratcher,since no local industries released ozone.Where was the smog forming?Where did it come from?Arie knew nitric oxides from car exhaustwas released into the air,and the incomplete burningof gasoline also releasedgaseous hydrocarbons,as did oil refineries.By themselves neither nitrousoxide nor hydrocarbonscould explain the smog.There had to be an additionalpiece to the puzzle.What did LA have more of than other city?Sunlight.♪ The sun is shining bright. ♪- To confirm his hunch, Arie's teamset up a Plexiglass smog chamberand pumped in nitrousoxide and hydrocarbons.Then they let the mix bake in the sun and(whooshing)smog.This was a whole new ball game.Unlike classic pollutantsthat got released directlyinto the air, this new smog formed onlywhen man-made chemicalsinteracted with natural sunlight.It was photo-chemical smog.So, the bottom line wasthat LA's newly uncoveredbeast didn't come from half-assed actionsat a factory or a flub at some oil plant,like originally believed in '43.It was cars.By this time Los AngelesCounty had two million carson its road and all the traffic streaminginto LA was making an alreadybad situation apocalyptic.Now that people were armedwith the information,Los Angeles set out toconquer the problem, right?Mmmm, mmm, mmm, mmm,not really.The link to vehicles caused a huge uproarin car-crazed Los Angeles.- I'm in a seriousrelationship with my car.(banjo music)- Automobile owners blamedthe car manufacturersfor making a defective product,and industry advocatesaccused Arie of biasedand incompetent science.So, he started givinglectures where he whipped upsmog on demand, leavingaudiences choking, literally.(cheering)Smog.(cheering)Smog.(cheering)Smog.(cheering)Smog.Many on the front lines even sacrificedtheir health to exposethe dangers of this beast.Air Pollution ControlOfficer S. Smith Griswoldvolunteered to breathe extreme levelsof the pollutant in Arie's smog chamberand developed bronchitis.Other LA County Air PollutionControl District employeesexposed their eyes tosmog from the chamberwhile colleagues manned stopwatchesand timed how long ittook for the volunteersto experience irritation, or even tears.But civic leaders andthe business communitystill pushed back, they were all"ozone only comes from the stratosphere."It must drop to oceanlevels and get blown"in by coastal breezes."It wasn't until 1954 that Ariegot to say "I told you so."- You know what, I told ya so.I (bleeping) told ya so.- To prove the ozonefrom the ocean theory,the oil industry funded aStanford Research Institute study.If the ozone was blowing in,then Catalina Island, just 29 milesoff the coast would begetting a bunch of ozonebut it wasn't- thisblew the whole migratingozone theory right out of the water.Get it?It's the ocean.Still, much of thepublic sincerely believedthat automakers couldn'tpossibly be the bad guyin this scenario becausethe clear car exhaustdidn't match the browncloud they were seeingin the sky and thosepeople who did believe ithad some crazy ideasfor getting rid of it.Some suggested to drilltunnels or cut passagesthrough the mountainsthen build giant fansto blow the smog into the desert.Other people were justlike, no let's stuff ricein car tailpipes toabsorb the hydrocarbons.So, the smog situation in 1950slingered and city officialsdragged their feetuntil a catastrophicincident on the other sideof the World.During a London cold snapon December 5th, 1952,sulfur particles mixed withfumes from burning coal.It produced a yellow fog thatsmelled like rotten eggs.The skies darkened and daytimevisibility became so limitedthat if you looked down,you couldn't see your feet.That is true.Over the next four days,an estimated 12,000Londoners would die from the pollution.By the time cold windsblew out the London smog,an additional 150,000people had been hospitalizedand thousand of animals alsofell victim to the deadly fog.And the craziest part isthat during this whole mess,no one noticed the risingdeath toll because the bodiesthat began to line thestreets couldn't be seenthrough the dark haze.One year later,California's new lieutenantgovernor Goodwin J. Knightcited the London tragedyand made combating smog his mission.Knight started looking forsomeone to help improveair quality and reduce pollution.Arnold Beckman was a celebratedchemist, is that a thing?- Yeah Nolan, it's a thing.This guy invented theDU spectrophotometer,you know, the UV/VIS spectrophotometerit's like Model-T ofscientific instrumentation.♪ Can I say hell yeah ♪♪ Hell yeah, hell yeah ♪- You're goddamn right.- Beckman was tasked withmaking recommendationsabout pollution reform.His prescription for the cure,establish car exhaust standards,create a mass transit system,impose more regulationson refineries and fueling operations,end backyard trash burning,and ensure slower growth forheavy-polluting industries.His guidelines were published in 1953,but progress was slow.LA's population meant any full-on attemptto curb smog couldn'tkeep up with the paceof LA's lightning-quick growth.Car manufacturers' reaction to the crisiswas sluggish at bestand only when prompted by the governmentdid they do anything.With the threat of mandatoryfederal regulations,the auto industry begin installinga crankcase ventilationsystem on their cars.This blow-by devicereturned unburned gasesto the combustion chambers.It was a significant advancebecause crankcase blowbymade up about 25 percentof the engine's hydrocarbon emissions.The equipment becamemandatory on all cars soldin California, beginningwith the 1963 models.By the mid 70s, Los Angelesexperienced dangerous levelsof smog more than 200days out of the year.The city's residents were breathing someof the dirtiest air in the world.Some people built underground,backyard smog shelters.One guy started a successful businessselling balloons filled with fresh, clean,desert air to Angelenos for 50 cents.There was even a Smog board game for kids.If you were a tourist,forget about buying a pictureof the Hollywood sign,instead you could settlefor a canister of Genuine Los Angeles Smog- a gag gift that'll make you gag!That's a fun joke we wrote.Smog alerts were putin place to warn peopleof hazardous airconditions, with stage onebeing the least severeand stage three beingthedon't-set-foot-outside-unless-you're-suicidalphase.As more and more researchlinked smog to health issues,average people became advocates.A Beverly Hills mom named Afton Sladeformed Stamp Out Smog.With a flair for the theatrical,she put together an event atthe Ambassador Hotel in 1964that displayed a birthday cake.The cake, which had a skull and crossbonesoutlined in bright frosting,was to mark 21 yearsof smog in Los Angeles.Hey the smog can drink now.Slade also encouraged mothers to show upat rallies with theirkids wearing gas masks,an item that became really popularat many anti-pollution rallies.Other anti-smog groups poppedup in LA during the late '50sand early 60s.Dedicated and vocal,these folks influencedpublic opinion anddemanded the powers-that-bedo something about whathad become a crisis.Building a better environment had enteredthe nation's collective consciousness.On April 22, 1970 this country heldits first ever Earth Day,and eight months laterPresident Richard Nixonsigned into law the Clean Air Act,which, among other things, required a 90%reductions in emissions fromnew automobiles by 1975.It also allowed the newly formedEnvironmental ProtectionAgency to regulateharmful chemicals.The act provided a frameworkfor seriously addressingthe problem of risinglevels of pollutants.Today, tailpipe emissionson new passenger carsare almost 99% cleanercompared to the 1960sand US cities have amuch-improved air quality,with air pollutants decliningby 68% from 1990 to 2014.That's really good.Fuels are much cleaner.Lead's been eliminated and sulfur levelsare more than 90% lower than they werebefore regulations were imposed.Hydrocarbons are no longer escapinginto the atmosphere whenyou fill up your pump.This month marks the 75th anniversaryof the day LA witnessed itsfirst encounter with smog.The incident became a turning pointin the fight against air pollutionand by remaining committedto clean air measures,embracing electric cars,and staying vigilant,hopefully we'll never see another daylike the one on July 26, 1943.We tell the lesser knownstories of the car worldevery week, here on Wheel Houseso make sure you hit thatsubscribe button right thereand maybe hit thatnotification bell as well.Thanks to Bart forguest-starring on this episode,you can watch his showScience Garage right here.(laughing)Ow (coughing)Check out this episode of Up to Speed.Follow me on Instagram @nolanjsykes,follow Donut on Twitter,on Instagram @donutmedia.Be nice.