Landscape room: environmental cons, concerns and comments: An exhibition of molecules that stalk the world

A hundred years ago, if you talked about protecting the environment you meant preventing floods or forest fires. Homes and farms could be ruined and families wiped out by a flash flood, a surge tide, or a raging fire. Meanwhile in industrial regions the skies were polluted with fumes, smoke and smog, rivers were little more than open drains and slag was piled up in great heaps. People complained but there was little they could do, because their livelihoods depended on the very industries which were causing the pollution. Excesses were curbed, but change was painfully slow. Fifty years ago, when you spoke of protecting the environment you meant controlling urban sprawl and cleaning up the wastes of industry. The climate of opinion now favours quicker changes, and much has been achieved since then: slag heaps have been sculpted into grassy knolls, derelict sites have been demolished and turned into sport centres or superstores, rivers now support fish and wildlife abounds on their banks. The belching smoke and choking fogs of coal-burning industries are only memories. And while the air in cities is now fouled by traffic fumes, there are signs that this pollution too will disappear as cars become cleaner. People today have other environmental concerns. They want action taken on different kinds of pollution. It is not enough to pull down old factories, gas works and foundries and to turf over the site: we want the soil beneath to be decontaminated too, so that homes can be built there and children can play safely in gardens. People want power to be generated without causing acid rain. They want all rivers and lakes to be so clean that people can fish from them or swim in them. When it comes to breathing, we have little choice. The air we breathe comes with the neighbourhoods in which we live and work. Clearly, we have some control: we can avoid traffic fumes, and change the ventilation of the rooms we are in, but even so the mixture that we are taking in is still a cocktail of gases, some of which are not natural, and some of which may be hurting us.