Smog crisis in the Ruhr area in 1962

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The smog crisis in the Ruhr area in 1962 occurred between December 3rd and 7th, 1962. It was smog of the London type. The background was air pollution and an inversion weather situation . In parts of the Ruhr area , the proportion of sulfur dioxide in the air reached 5,000  micrograms per cubic meter , and daily mean values ​​for suspended particulate matter reached up to 2,400 micrograms per cubic meter. Almost 20% more people died than in the same period of the previous year.

background

The word "smog" - a portmanteau of smoke (smoke) and fog (fog) - was generally known in Germany in December 1952nd From December 5 to 9, 1952, London suffered a smog disaster . Tens of thousands of people had breathing problems; in these days three times as many people died as usual; especially babies, toddlers, the elderly and people who have previously had respiratory and heart diseases.

Legal measures against the smog problem in the Ruhr area were first called for in 1952 when Sturm Kegel , the association director of the Ruhr coal district settlement association , presented a draft law. Large-scale industry should finance the filter units required for air improvement from its own resources. ("Anyone who has the right to earn a lot of money also has the duty to keep the country free from dust and gas.") With this he achieved that this topic emerged in the public consciousness and that the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia took up the topic for the first time .

Willy Brandt stood for the first time in 1961 as a candidate for chancellor of his party, the SPD . On April 28, 1961, Brandt demanded in a speech: “Terrifying test results show that, in connection with air and water pollution, an increase in leukemia, cancer, rickets and changes in the blood count can even be observed in children. It is shocking that this collective task, which involves the health of millions of people, has so far been almost completely neglected. The sky over the Ruhr area must turn blue again! "

consequences

As a reaction to this smog crisis, the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia issued a smog ordinance (ordinance of December 2, 1964 (GVBl. 356)).

In the 1960s and 1970s, many coal heaters were replaced by oil heaters. In many other areas, too, oil replaced coal as fuel. The coal crisis began.

In March 1974 the 7th Bundestag passed the Federal Immission Control Act . The government draft of the Brandt government of January 12, 1973 did not contain Section 40 (1) of the BImschG, which was later adopted; it was inserted at the suggestion of the Bundestag Interior Committee . According to Section 40, the state governments can define areas in which motor vehicle traffic must be restricted during poor weather conditions.

On January 17, 1979 the first smog alarm was given in the Ruhr area. The first level III smog alarm was issued six years later in January 1985.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and reunification in 1990, much of the pollution in the former GDR decreased significantly. This contributed significantly to the fact that from then on - also in West Germany - smog occurred much less frequently (see winter smog in Germany ). The introduction of vehicle catalytic converters (and thus unleaded motor gasoline ), low-sulfur diesel and heating oil and many other measures also led to a decrease in the concentration of pollutants in the air. Many of these measures can also be traced back to the occurrence of new types of forest damage (" forest dieback "), which from November 1981 became more and more public awareness.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Stefan Lühle: Restrictions and bans on motor vehicle traffic to reduce air pollution: German pollution control law in its constitutional, European and international framework , p. 337 ( online )
  2. ↑ a b Peter Bruckmann, Ulrich Pfeffer, Volker Hoffmann: 50 years of air quality control in Northwestern Germany - how the blue skies over the Ruhr district were Achieved. In: Hazardous substances - cleanliness. Air . 74, No. 1/2, 2014, ISSN  0949-8036 , pp. 37-44.
  3. ^ Franz Joseph Dreyhaupt (ed.): VDI-Lexikon Umwelttechnik. VDI-Verlag Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-18-400891-6 , p. 1081.
  4. ^ Kai F. Hünemörder: The Early History of the Global Environmental Crisis and the Formation of German Environmental Policy (1950–1973) . Dissertation Univ. Kiel, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002. ISBN 3-515-08188-7
  5. ↑ a b To blue skies - Der Spiegel, August 9, 1961
  6. ↑ Your chimney is smoking - Der Spiegel, May 30, 1956
  7. ↑ Frank Uekötter: From the smoke plague to the ecological revolution . Essen: Klartext, 2003. ISBN 3-89861-195-7
  8. ↑ How the sky over the Ruhr turned blue again. In: WAZ , April 25, 2010 ( online )
  9. ↑ a b spiegel.de January 21, 1985: Smog alarm: All wheels stand still