Â鶹´«Ã½

From Arthur Squires, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

Hugh Warwick writes about the deaths caused by domestic smoke pollution in the Third World (6 December, p 22). I would remind him how the UK first met the provisions of its Clean Air Act. By the early 1960s, before North Sea natural gas became generally available, London eliminated smog by compulsory use of smokeless solid fuels made from coal.

In all the centuries that it endured smogs caused by burning raw coals, London had chimneys. Warwick rightly argues the Third World needs chimneys, too, to get the smoke out of houses. But these can do little to improve the outdoor pollution of the developing world’s great cities.

However, along with chimneys, smokeless solid fuels (not petroleum products) can be the cheapest means for cleaning environments, indoors and out.

In supplying foreign aid to these countries, improving the health of their poor as well as saving forests and postponing global warming, the US could get more bang for its buck by shipping smokeless fuels manufactured from low-sulphur coals mined in Virginia and Wyoming. Unemployment is high in Virginia’s coal-mining counties.

Blacksburg, Virginia, US