The National Air Pollution Symposium was held on November 10–11, 1949 in Pasadena, California by the Stanford Research Institute (now

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...

), along with assistance from the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

, the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

and the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

. SRI had performed much of the early research on

air pollution Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different typ ...

and the formation of

ozone Ozone (), or trioxygen, is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope , breaking down in the lo ...

in the lower atmosphere. About 400 scientists, businessmen, and politicians attended the event, which was the first event of its kind. The conference (and subsequent conferences) spurred some of the early pollution and climate change research, as well as early climate change legislation including the

Air Pollution Control Act The Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 (, ch. 360, ) was the first U.S. federal law to address the national environmental problem of air pollution. This was "an act to provide research and technical assistance relating to air pollution control". ...

of 1955.

References

{{reflist 1949 in the environment Air pollution Environmental conferences Conventions in California SRI International 1949 in California