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True, and we are getting cleaner production methods. The early production was incredibly inefficient and produced way more pollution than now. I can say _that

True, and we are getting cleaner production methods. The early production was incredibly inefficient and produced way more pollution than now. I can say _that_ with some certainty, but I can't say that they produced x% of the current production back then and were N times more polluting. Plus, it isn't clear how the atmosphere absorbs/reacts to the pollutants. (is there a lag? why the spike in 1970s? did the levels really fall off so quickly? I thought once steel left the US production it got much "dirtier" to produce?) Lots of questions, I'm mostly asking to show me a bit of the range that is clearly outside the definition of "preindustrial"

maxerickson 10y ago
Presumably China adopted some of the pollution control technologies developed in the 1970s as it industrialized. edit: It's pretty likely that steel production since 2010 is greater than all steel production prior to 1900. I would think that the energy used to make steel since 2010 is at least comparable to the energy used for all metal production prior to 1900. Industrialization certainly got started prior to 1900. I would say it took a while to really hit it's stride.
kogus 10y ago
For the record, steel production has not left the US (although many of the jobs have due to automation). The US is #4 in the world for steel production[1], although China produces about 17x more. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_pro...
- dpark 10y ago
  US steel production in absolute terms has dropped 45% (edit: 31%) from 50 years ago, when we made about 25% of steel globally. Now we produce less than 5% of steel globally. I'd say steel production has largely left the US.
  - DougWebb 10y ago
    The Wikipedia article shows US production dropping 30% from 1967 to 2015. It's a loss, yes, but 70% of the production is still here. What's changed is that China and other countries are producing much more now, so as a percentage of world-wide production the US has dropped. But that'd be true even if we were producing more domestic steel than before.
    - dpark 10y ago
      > The Wikipedia article shows US production dropping 30% from 1967 to 2015. It's a loss, yes, but 70% of the production is still here. Fair, I plugged my number in upside down. The production 50 years ago was ~46% higher than today, or today's is ~31% lower. > What's changed is that China and other countries are producing much more now, so as a percentage of world-wide production the US has dropped. But that'd be true even if we were producing more domestic steel than before. Yes, but we've also dropped 30% of our own production. When our absolute production is down this much and our overall share of production has plummeted, I think it's fair to say the industry has largely left. The population is also up by over 50% since 1967, so per capita our steel production has basically been cut in half. In comparison, the absolute number of consumer electronics that America produces might actually be higher than 50 years ago, but as a share of the market, production has plummeted, to the point that everyone would likely agree that consumer electronics manufacturing has largely left the US.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        Active production capacity has left the US, but one of the things that people lament about the loss of industry is the loss of technical capacity. The current US steel industry is clearly large enough to support some high level of technical capacity, even if it doesn't compete in terms of volume. It seems that really big, really fussy castings get done in Japan and Korea though.
      - DougWebb 10y ago
        When you say "has largely left", that implies that we no longer have companies doing the work, that we've lost the capability to do the work. That doesn't seem to be the case, at least not based on these figures. If we're producing less steel than we used to, but we're still producing some, then we still have the capability to expand. Production is down and if it continues we'll eventually lose the ability to produce our own steel, but we're not there yet. For consumer electronics, I disagree that "everyone would likely agree that consumer electronics manufacturing has largely left the US", especially if our production of consumer electronics is up. (Is it rising as well?) We may not be the leader anymore, but that's very different from "largely left". I don't believe that everything is fine with US manufacturing; I think it's a problem that there are many things we still need which we don't make anymore. But there are many things that we do make, even when other countries make them too, so it's not all doom and gloom.
kaybe 10y ago
If you don't inject it into the stratosphere, most pollutants such as acids or particles are precipitated out (dry or wet) pretty quickly (on the order of days to weeks/months), so I'd expect a lag of max 2 months due to the transport time to Greenland (and it will be a bit lower due to the distance and loss over time). [1] (If China did a better job of filtering the SO2 from exhaust, this particular air problem there would be gone within a week.) [1] http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/djj/book/bookchap4-16.gif http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/djj/book/bookcha...
anexprogrammer 10y ago
The spike in the 70s will have been the steady growth of cars and re-industrialisation since the war. The fuel crisis was 73, for a couple of years, which led to queues at pumps, rationing and introduction of speed limits in many places. That led to recession and the decline of some heavier industries... and was a factor leading to the election of Reagan and Thatcher at the end of the 70s, start of 80s. Their restructuring led to the terminal decline of some heavier industry. In 79 there was a UNECE conference[1] on pollution that most members signed up to. 1985 gave us the Sulfur agreement that UK and US (amongst others) never ratified. The mid 90s saw further reduction of sulfur, that finally the UK adopted, though the US didn't. That led to wider use of SO2 scubbers and tighter emissions, though initial efforts only stemmed the increase due to rising car numbers during the 80s. The agreement has had regular updates ever since, leading to lower targets, adding pollutants, adoption of catalysts etc. Most of the acid rain is now in the oceans of course. It's still all under the UNECE so excludes the growth economies and the developing world so in today's world it excludes much of the world's industry. That was nearly all from memory - there will be mistakes. :) It's worth noting that at the start of the 80s acid rain, its causes and effects, were on the news almost like climate change is today. It was every week - seeing pieces showing dieback in Scandanavian forests, lake acidity, some previously unknown effect and on and on. In the UK it was a weekly reminder the Thatcher govt didn't believe. We learned the UK had tried to limit Sulfur in the 30s and had started fitting SO2 scrubbers on power stations - between the wars! The war meant that was the last heard of it until the 80s and 90s. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Long-Range_Transboundary_Air_Pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Long-Range_Trans...
- Ericson2314 10y ago
  Ozone and acid rain, things from the biology book that we no longer need to worry about. Hopefully C02 has a nice clear peak in retrospect someday too :|.

maxerickson 10y ago

Presumably China adopted some of the pollution control technologies developed in the 1970s as it industrialized. edit: It's pretty likely that steel production since 2010 is greater than all steel production prior to 1900. I would think that the energy used to make steel since 2010 is at least comparable to the energy used for all metal production prior to 1900. Industrialization certainly got started prior to 1900. I would say it took a while to really hit it's stride.

kogus 10y ago

For the record, steel production has not left the US (although many of the jobs have due to automation). The US is #4 in the world for steel production[1], although China produces about 17x more. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_pro...

dpark 10y ago
US steel production in absolute terms has dropped 45% (edit: 31%) from 50 years ago, when we made about 25% of steel globally. Now we produce less than 5% of steel globally. I'd say steel production has largely left the US.
- DougWebb 10y ago
  The Wikipedia article shows US production dropping 30% from 1967 to 2015. It's a loss, yes, but 70% of the production is still here. What's changed is that China and other countries are producing much more now, so as a percentage of world-wide production the US has dropped. But that'd be true even if we were producing more domestic steel than before.
  - dpark 10y ago
    > The Wikipedia article shows US production dropping 30% from 1967 to 2015. It's a loss, yes, but 70% of the production is still here. Fair, I plugged my number in upside down. The production 50 years ago was ~46% higher than today, or today's is ~31% lower. > What's changed is that China and other countries are producing much more now, so as a percentage of world-wide production the US has dropped. But that'd be true even if we were producing more domestic steel than before. Yes, but we've also dropped 30% of our own production. When our absolute production is down this much and our overall share of production has plummeted, I think it's fair to say the industry has largely left. The population is also up by over 50% since 1967, so per capita our steel production has basically been cut in half. In comparison, the absolute number of consumer electronics that America produces might actually be higher than 50 years ago, but as a share of the market, production has plummeted, to the point that everyone would likely agree that consumer electronics manufacturing has largely left the US.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Active production capacity has left the US, but one of the things that people lament about the loss of industry is the loss of technical capacity. The current US steel industry is clearly large enough to support some high level of technical capacity, even if it doesn't compete in terms of volume. It seems that really big, really fussy castings get done in Japan and Korea though.
    - DougWebb 10y ago
      When you say "has largely left", that implies that we no longer have companies doing the work, that we've lost the capability to do the work. That doesn't seem to be the case, at least not based on these figures. If we're producing less steel than we used to, but we're still producing some, then we still have the capability to expand. Production is down and if it continues we'll eventually lose the ability to produce our own steel, but we're not there yet. For consumer electronics, I disagree that "everyone would likely agree that consumer electronics manufacturing has largely left the US", especially if our production of consumer electronics is up. (Is it rising as well?) We may not be the leader anymore, but that's very different from "largely left". I don't believe that everything is fine with US manufacturing; I think it's a problem that there are many things we still need which we don't make anymore. But there are many things that we do make, even when other countries make them too, so it's not all doom and gloom.

kaybe 10y ago

If you don't inject it into the stratosphere, most pollutants such as acids or particles are precipitated out (dry or wet) pretty quickly (on the order of days to weeks/months), so I'd expect a lag of max 2 months due to the transport time to Greenland (and it will be a bit lower due to the distance and loss over time). [1] (If China did a better job of filtering the SO2 from exhaust, this particular air problem there would be gone within a week.) [1] http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/djj/book/bookchap4-16.gif http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/djj/book/bookcha...

anexprogrammer 10y ago

The spike in the 70s will have been the steady growth of cars and re-industrialisation since the war. The fuel crisis was 73, for a couple of years, which led to queues at pumps, rationing and introduction of speed limits in many places. That led to recession and the decline of some heavier industries... and was a factor leading to the election of Reagan and Thatcher at the end of the 70s, start of 80s. Their restructuring led to the terminal decline of some heavier industry. In 79 there was a UNECE conference[1] on pollution that most members signed up to. 1985 gave us the Sulfur agreement that UK and US (amongst others) never ratified. The mid 90s saw further reduction of sulfur, that finally the UK adopted, though the US didn't. That led to wider use of SO2 scubbers and tighter emissions, though initial efforts only stemmed the increase due to rising car numbers during the 80s. The agreement has had regular updates ever since, leading to lower targets, adding pollutants, adoption of catalysts etc. Most of the acid rain is now in the oceans of course. It's still all under the UNECE so excludes the growth economies and the developing world so in today's world it excludes much of the world's industry. That was nearly all from memory - there will be mistakes. :) It's worth noting that at the start of the 80s acid rain, its causes and effects, were on the news almost like climate change is today. It was every week - seeing pieces showing dieback in Scandanavian forests, lake acidity, some previously unknown effect and on and on. In the UK it was a weekly reminder the Thatcher govt didn't believe. We learned the UK had tried to limit Sulfur in the 30s and had started fitting SO2 scrubbers on power stations - between the wars! The war meant that was the last heard of it until the 80s and 90s. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Long-Range_Transboundary_Air_Pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Long-Range_Trans...

Ericson2314 10y ago
Ozone and acid rain, things from the biology book that we no longer need to worry about. Hopefully C02 has a nice clear peak in retrospect someday too :|.