“No emissions into the air yet”
Whoever wrote this is an ignoramus.
Yeah, some sketchy claims in that statement. Perhaps the "no emissions yet" claim is related to the preceding "Autos had just started being built" sentence? I.e., no emissions from *cars* yet? No ozone hole? How would he know? No one was able to measure the ozone layer at that time. And pollution in large cities like e.g. London was likely 100s of times worse than it is today, with all the carbon/sulfur soot in the air from burning dirty coal, etc. Just read some Sherlock Holmes stories!