A Caltech scientist turned the key in 1948, and innovation is getting into gear. Now we're on the road from smog to ZEVs.
The source was primarily the emissions from the incomplete burning of gasoline in internal combustion engines, plus emissions from gas storage tanks and auto gas tanks. The automobile that was the basis of the Southern California way of life was also the scourge of that lifestyle. One citizen summed up the shock in a letter to the Los Angeles Times: "We have created one of the finest networks of freeways in the country, and suddenly wake up to discover that we have also created a monster."
From Haagen-Smit's decisive discovery came the first regulations of auto emissions, which led to the catalytic converter and other technical solutions. But it didn't happen right away. One smog attack in the 1960s was so bad that Gov.
Ronald Reagan
went on television to plead with the public "to limit all but absolutely necessary auto travel."
But Reagan did something else as well. In 1967, he signed into law a new agency — the California Air Resources Board. As its first chairman, he chose none other than Haagen-Smit, by then known as the "Father of Smog."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-yergin-smog-20111211,0,7885133.story
