For those of us raised in the digital age, it’s not everyday we get to look at images
this way.
Each of these tiny translucent photos hold a moment in history... and in this room…
there are thousands of them.
This is environmental photographer Arthur Tress.
And if Instagram was around in the 60s, Arthur would be its king.
I like showing people in relationship to the world around them even if I’m doing a portrait
or city scape or the effect of man’s relationship to nature, how he modifies it and changes
it.
Arthur grew up in Brooklyn and he used his camera to show the changing landscape of New
York.
And during his twenties, the city was pretty much unrecognizable from what it is today.
The entire waterfront was just piled with junk.
There were huge garbage landfills that were spilling all these toxic water into the areas,
neighborhoods.
These great chimneys belching out black smoke, it gives you an image of hell or the apocalypse.
New York City wasn’t always so ominous.
In the 1940s, New York City saw a great deal of post-WWII prosperity.
Buildings rose from concrete to clouds as the skyline took shape, and industry was thriving.
But in the decades to follow, the city began showing the negative effects of its industrial
boom.
When you’d go to your window sill, it’d be covered with dust and dirt.
People would have a lot of cases of asthma and coughing and your eyes would burn.
It was like what they have now in China, that big smog.
And that comparison probably isn’t that far off.
During the 50 and 60s, New York City looked a lot like Beijing does today.
Toxic smog has besieged this city for decades.
On some days, residents can’t even leave their homes and there are documented widespread
health problems among its population, akin to the problems felt in 1960s New York.
Now, the ill effects of toxic smog come down to these little guys...
Particulates, tiny microscopic solid particles or liquid droplets, suspended in the air commonly
created by burning fossil fuels or wood, as well as power plants and industrial facilities.
Particulates suspended in the air vary in size but essentially, the smaller they are,
the deeper they can penetrate your respiratory system or even your bloodstream.
The EPA considers any particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter extremely hazardous
to breathe.
And if you can’t wrap your head around how small that is, then think about a human hair
which is around 70 micrometers in diameter - that’s 30 times larger than fine particulates.
Today these fine particulates are monitored and measured by an air quality index or AQI
for short.
Where a range of 0-50 is considered safe.
To put Beijing’s pollution crisis into perspective, over the past five years, the city saw readings
as high as 755... that’s so bad there isn’t even a AQI category for it.
However, in the 1960s air pollution wasn’t really measured in this way… which does
make it difficult to draw a quantifiable comparison.
What we do know is that scientists in the 1960s did report extremely elevated levels
of damaging air pollutants such as Carbon Monoxide and Sulphur Dioxide in New York City.
In 1966, during a period of elevated air pollution, known as the “killer smog”, researchers
found an increase in death rate of 24 deaths per day.
The medical community acknowledged the toll air pollution was taking on people's health
with one city medical examiner remarking “On the autopsy table it’s unmistakable...The
person who spent his life in the Adirondacks [Mountains] has nice pink lungs.
The city dweller’s are black as coal.”
But for those who lived outside of the city, some of the most impactful evidence of the
hazardous pollution that plagued New York, were photos...
like Arthur’s.
in these areas, you’d find old dolls and the carcasses of dead animals and birds.
… It was almost like a warzone.
And these photos became an important catalyst in the fight to clean up the city.
the movement for doing that began with… me actually in the 1960s.
The images I created like a thunderstorm over New York Cemetery or the man coming through
the smoke became very well-known as kind of environmental imagery.
Arthur’s photos were published in magazines and put on posters in hopes that they would
be seen by people who had the power to enforce change.
“We must act and act decisively, it is literally now or never.”
In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon introduced a slew of environmental policies and programs
intended to clean up America.
The Environmental Protection Agency was launched and the companies dumping toxic waste into
waterways and releasing pollutants into the air were held accountable.
When the EPA came along and said, “No, you can’t keep doing that.
We have Clean Water and Clean Air Standards,” it wasn’t easy.
It took time because these corporations fight back as much as they can but eventually, it
did turn the tide.
Over time, New York City transformed into the metropolis we know today.
And throughout the past six decades we’ve learned just how fragile the environment really
is.
The photographs were not only important for themselves at the time but became a reference
for the future in a way
As we face an uncertain future…
Arthur’s images will continue to help remind us how easily we could revert back to a toxic
world.
It may come as a surprise that President Richard Nixon… a Republican…
helped created the Environmental Protection Agency.
But environmentalism wasn’t always a source of GOP contention.
To learn when protecting the planet became political, watch our video here.
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