Farewell, King Coal

Anthony Seaton

Description

When the last deep coal mine in Britain closed in 2016 it marked the end of the most transformative era in the history of mankind. In writing this account of the rise and decline of the coal industry and its effects on the health of the miners, of those who worked with coal products and of almost all of us who have breathed in the pollution from its combustion, Professor Seaton points to the often hidden adverse consequences of transformative technologies. He also traces the early history of the discoveries that led to the concept of man-made climate change and discusses the converging threats to civilisation from unregulated technological advance. I look back on the decline and death of the coal industry with mixed feelings and say, echoing the words of Shakespeares Richard II, Farewell King Coal. But I watch with interest the decline of oil as a fuel, soon perhaps to be followed by gas, a switch away from fossil fuels driven by understanding of climate change. This is my personal obituary of coal in the context of an individuals medical career and a populations increasing understanding of mankinds place in the ecology of the Earth. It is the story of the most disruptive technology ever introduced by mankind and the consequential increasing prosperity of the western world, but also of the deaths and diseases caused by coal, its mining, utilisation and combustion, and of the scientific disputes that surrounded the medical discoveries. As such, it is an important part of the story of mankinds unending struggle to survive on this restless planet in harmony with the animals, microbes, and plants that share it with us. From the Introduction by the author.

Sujets

• Environment
• Occupational medicine
• Médecine

Informations

• Publié par: Dunedin Academic Press
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781780465920
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Farewell, King Coal
From industrial triumph to climatic disaster
Anthony Seaton
Contents
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Sir Anthony Newman Taylor
Introduction: Sad stories of the death of kings
1 Early beginnings
2 Earth, air, fire and water: the dangerous life of the coal miner
3 The environment, disease and social reform
4 King Coal: the rise to power
5 The lungs and their diseases
6 Anthracosis – the disease that disappeared
7 What does coal do to miners’ lungs? The Cardiff studies
8 Tying it all up: bronchitis, emphysema and pneumoconiosis
9 Oil, the usurper, and industrial cancers
10 ‘The inconvenience of the aer and smoake’: the story of air pollution
11 The story of a changing climate: the scientific discoveries
12 The 21st century: the world and its changing climate
13 Now it is up to us
14 There is a tide in the affairs of men
References and notes
Glossary
Index
List of illustrations Figure 1.1 One of many erratic stones by the River Almond Figure 1.2 The mill pool at Cramond Brig Figure 2.1 Coal miner operating shearer on long wall face Figure 2.2 Agricola’s illustration of a 16th-century metal mine Figure 2.3 The great 19th-century water wheel used for draining the lead mine at Laxey, Isle of Man Figure 2.4 Agricola’s illustration of a trolley with iron guide pin underneath Figure 2.5 Illustration from Report of the Royal Commission of 1842 showing children being winched in baskets down mine shaft, using horse power Figure 2.6 Agricola’s illustration of a bellows method of ventilating mines in the 16th century Figure 2.7 A modern version of the miner’s Davy lamp Figure 3.1 Woman and two children dragging wheeled coal tub to the foot of the shaft c. 1780 Figure 4.1 The origins of organic chemistry Figure 5.1 West Virginia University Medical School in 1970 Figure 5.2 Photomicrograph of small airway, dividing into terminal airways and multiple alveoli Figure 5.3 Sketch of the action of cilia Figure 5.4 A lung macrophage engulfing particles of dust Figure 5.5 Laënnec’s book showing his stethoscope and the upper part of a tuberculous cavitated lung Figure 5.6 A normal chest radiograph Figure 5.7 A modern portable electronic spirometer Figure 5.8 Spirogram from electronic spirometer Figure 5.9 The mobile unit, containing X-ray, spirometry and clinical facilities, visiting a mine in West Virginia in 1970 Figure 6.1 The first known illustration of a coalminer’s lung alongside Andral’s description of the patient Figure 6.2 The preserved lung of the first man shown to have coalworkers’ pneumoconiosis Figure 7.1 Chest radiograph of a coal miner, showing PMF Figure 7.2 Simple coal workers’ pneumoconiosis Figure 7.3 Gough-Wentworth section of lung showing black coal deposits (macules) of early simple coal workers’ pneumoconiosis Figure 7.4 Gough-Wentworth section of lung showing black deposition of coal in central lymph nodes and PMF in the upper part Figure 8.1 The MRE 113A respirable dust sampler Figure 8.2 Relationship between the risk of the earliest X-ray signs of simple pneumoconiosis and average daily exposure to coal dust over 40 years underground Figure 8.3 Relationship between the risk of progressive massive fibrosis and daily average exposure to dusts of different rank over 40 years Figure 8.4 Relationship between having an FEV 1 of less than 65% of average normal and daily exposure to coal dust over 40 years underground Figure 8.5 Gough-Wentworth section of miner’s lung showing emphysema Figure 8.6 Proportion of the UK mining workforce found on regular radiographic surveillance to have pneumoconiosis at different ages Figure 8.7 Section of lung of coal miner who had worked drilling rock, showing silicotic nodules Figure 9.1 Shale bings to the west of Edinburgh Figure 9.2 Tom, the sweeping boy, fleeing from the nanny: Warwick Goble’s illustration from Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies Figure 9.3 Benzopyrene and dibenzanthracene Figure 9.4 Trichloroethyene Figure 9.5 2-naphthylamine Figure 9.6 Vinyl chloride Figure 9.7 Polyvinyl chloride Figure 10.1 The smoky city: Warwick Goble’s illustration from Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies Figure 10.2 Concentrations of ultrafine particles, NO and NO 2 in an unventilated kitchen when four gas rings are burnt for 15 minutes Figure 10.3 A temperature inversion over the Firth of Forth Figure 10.4 Pollution concentrations and daily deaths in the 1952 London smog Figure 10.5 Average concentrations of sulphur dioxide and smoke particles measured at over 1200 monitoring stations across the UK Figure 10.6 Electron microscope photograph of air pollution particles on a filter paper Figure 10.7 Relation between air pollution and particle numbers, outdoor and indoor measured simultaneously, showing their close correlation. Figure 10.8 Relation between mean outdoor counts of nanoparticles and NO 2 , representing 6 months of continuous side-by-side measurements and showing a close correlation Figure 11.1 Annual ice deposits shown clearly in a Peruvian glacier Figure 11.2 Air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice Figure 11.3 The Keeling curve Figure 11.4 The ice data and the Keeling curve Figure 11.5 Methane concentrations in ice cores Figure 12.1 As I wrote, a Comma butterfly arrived in my garden in Edinburgh, the first I had seen in 40 years Figure 12.2 Global temperature change in sea and air across the world 1880–2010, expressed as difference from the 1960s Figure 12.3 Total area of sea ice over the Arctic, showing a persistent reduction with seasonal fluctuations Figure 12.4 Rise of the sea level from 1880 to 2010 Figure 12.5 Estimated global population from 10,000 BCE Figure 12.6 Global energy consumption 1991–2016, as megatonnes oil equivalent Figure 13.1 Overall reduction in use of fossil fuel and increase in renewables in Britain since 2001 Figure 13.2 A UK ration book of the 1950s Figure 14.1 Ruins of a Mayan city, part of an empire, reclaimed from the jungle Figure 14.2 London’s financial centre, seen rising through a layer of winter air pollution
Acknowledgements
My thanks are owed especially to three friends, Professor Bob Maynard, Professor Ken Donaldson, and Ms Sarah Lowry. Bob, who has an immense knowledge of air pollution, physiology, toxicology and English literature, read and commented on each chapter as I wrote it. Ken, toxicologist and musician, a colleague for 40 years, gave much helpful advice on the history and pathology of the dust diseases. Sarah, an oral historian at the London Royal College of Physicians who had recorded my own oral history, also kindly agreed to read and comment on each chapter especially for comprehensibility to the non-scientist. Their comments have been invaluable. Needless to say, no one other than I is responsible for any errors. I hope they are few.
I owe a special note of thanks to the Colt Foundation which from its inception has helped me and many of my younger research colleagues in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and whose generous grant ensured the survival of the Institute of Occupational Medicine. I am also very grateful to the librarians of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Iain Milne and Estela Dukan, and of the Institute of Occupational Medicine, Ken Dixon, for their assistance in tracing obscure references. More generally, I wish to record my indebtedness to colleagues and students throughout my career and to my own teachers, too numerous to name, but who are remembered with gratitude by me. Finally, so many thanks to my dear wife Jill. She heard me say ‘never again’ when I finished my last book 18 years ago, yet has tolerated with good humour and support my spending much of my 80th year breaking that vow.
Foreword
Farewell, King Coal is an evocative title for Professor Seaton’s history of coal and the consequences of its extraction and combustion on the health of the planet and its inhabitants. In Professor Seaton, coal has a biographer who writes with authority, clarity and often personal knowledge both of the scientific advances and of the scientists whose research has provided our current knowledge of the nature and impact of these effects.
His history of coal is informed by his experience as a respiratory physician and medical scientist, working in the field of occupational lung disease, often directly involved in important scientific advances. He interweaves this experience with the history of the increasing understanding of the risks which coal and its combustion pose. Following a period working in West Virginia investigating the effects of inhaled coal dust on the lungs of Appalachian miners, he returned to the UK as chest physician in Cardiff, working in close proximity to the Medical Research Council Pneumoconiosis Research Unit (PRU) where much fundamental research on the risks of inhaled coal dust to miners was undertaken. The work of the PRU in the 1940’s and 1950’s provided understanding of the nature of coal workers pneumoconiosis (CWP), of the factors leading to the development of the associated disabling Progressive Massive Fibrosis (PMF) and, critically, of the means to prevent it.
He describes the outstanding leaders of this remarkable endeavour. Two figures stand out: Jethro Gough who demonstrated that PMF in coal miners need not require silica exposure, but could be a consequence of exposure to coal dust alone; and Archie Cochrane who showed that the risk of PMF increased directly with increasing category of simple pneumoconiosis, itself a reflection of the quantity of coal dust retained in the lungs, providing one of the means to prevent PMF in coal miners. Cochrane, who was later to achieve fame for his monograph, “Effectiveness and Efficiency”, maintained that his work on CWP was his most important contribution to scientific research.
Professor Seaton subsequently moved to Edinburgh to lead the Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM). Initially set up by the National Coal Board, IOM was responsible for the regular sur