Because of a geological fluke, bad air and brown skies settled over the Los Angeles basin even before the rise of the automobile. But over the last century, as oil refineries and international shipping docks started dotting the coast and as millions moved into newly created suburbs too spread out to be reached easily by public transit, Los Angeles became notorious for its smog. The cover was so thick that some newcomers to the area, including author Carlson’s mother, were unaware that the city was surrounded by mountains—until, by chance, extreme winds blew the filthy clouds away. “This is a book meant to celebrate and explain government’s great achievement in cleaning up my city’s air,” writes Carlson, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a former acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “But it is also a cautionary tale about corporate malfeasance and the massive harm it can do to public health and the environment.” Carlson presents a quick, efficient history of the factors that came together to tackle the scourge, factors that included concerned citizens both well-placed (like Dorothy Chandler of the Los Angeles Times dynasty) and downtrodden (including pioneering environmental justice groups from East Los Angeles and South Central Los Angeles); innovative scientists from regional institutions like UCLA and the California Institute of Technology; and local, state, and federal government combining to regulate oil and auto manufacturing companies that not only denied their role in creating the mess but spent billions to discourage action on it.
