I saw the pictures taken in Pittsburgh in the 1950s, where they had to have street lights on at noon in winter. I also saw the soot-incrusted facade of the Pitt

I saw the pictures taken in Pittsburgh in the 1950s, where they had to have street lights on at noon in winter. I also saw the soot-incrusted facade of the Pittsburgh Carnegie Library before it was sandblasted clean in the late 1980s. (By then, the steel mills, and the respective steel-worker housing, were a heartbreaking ghost town for miles along the Monongahela river.) There are also the stories of the London "fogs" (really bad smogs) in the late 1800s. Coal is better than no power, but it has nasty consequences. Getting past it is tough, and it takes time and investment.