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Every Breath You Take

November 13, 2026 · 57 min

Show notes

It was known as the Great Smog. In 1952, London was blanketed for five days in a thick toxic layer of soot and sulphur dioxide, leading to thousands of premature deaths. The outcome was the Clean Air Act of 1956. In this programme, Helen Czerski and Tom Heap ask what's changed in the seventy years which have passed since then. How clean is the air we now breathe?

Panel: Dr Gary Fuller, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Imperial College in London Dr Kathy Davies, Environment Historian, Northumbria University Beth Gardiner, Journalist and author

Producer: Emma Campbell Assistant Producers: Toby Field and Georgia Graham

All episodes of Rare Earth

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