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1st billion
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2nd billion
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Minamata disaster
In Japan in the 1950s people in a fishing village started getting sick and acting strange, it turned out that the fish they were eating was heavily contaminated with mercury. It turns out that a company called Chisso dumped around 82 tons of mercury into Minamata Bay. People started to protest and sue the government and in 1968 they stopped dumping chemicals into the Bay. -
Kyshtym Disaster
The Kyshtym Disaster was an underground nuclear waste explosion near Kyshtym, Russia. This disaster was given a level 6 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, which means there was a great deal of damage to the environment around it. Only Fukushima and Chernobyl were rated higher than this. -
3rd billion
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Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring Published
People started to spray a pesticide called DDT on their crops. Because of this, birds started to ingest the harmful chemicals from eating the bugs. Rachel Carson started to realize the side effects of DDT and wrote Silent Spring. People read her book which helped jumpstart the environmental movement. The EPA was created as well -
Stockholm Conference
The Stockholm Conference was held in 1972 in Stockholm, Sweden. This conference prioritized environmental issues and it’s link to economic growth. After the Stockholm Conference, people took action to assess and manage human damage on a national and international level. -
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act was created because of the rapid decline of multiple species throughout the United States. Without the biodiversity throughout the United States, ecosystems would fail and out environment would collapse. -
4th billion
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Seveso Disaster
A valve broke in the ICMESA in Mida, Italy. A highly toxic chemical, dioxin TCDD, was released into the air which caused the surrounding communities’ vegetation and food supply to go bad, many cases of severe dioxin poisoning rose too. -
Love Canal
State officials detected the leakage of toxic chemicals in the basements of a residential area in Niagara falls. It turned out that Hooker Chemicals and Plastic Corporation used the area to dump around 22,000 tons of chemical waste in the 1940’s and 50’s -
Bhopal disaster
An estimated 45 tons of methyl isocyanate escaped from an Insecticide plant and the gas spread into the neighborhoods around the plant which killed thousands of people. In total, between 15,000 and 20,000 people died from this incident and over half a million people suffered complications from the exposure to the gas. In 1998 the factory side was turned over to the state but nothing was really done about it. -
Chernobyl meltdown
The Chernobyl Disaster happened in Ukraine after the fourth reactor blew up after it was handled poorly, spreading nuclear waste in parts of Europe. It is still not safe to be in certain places because of radiation levels. -
Montreal Protocol
The Montreal Protocol is used to stop ozone depleting CFC’s. UV radiation rays are harmful to cells and life itself, and the ozone layer protects life on Earth from many illnesses caused by UV radiation. HFC’s were potent greenhouse gases that were phased out in 2019 under the Kigali Amendment. -
5th billion
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Kyoto protocol
The Kyoto Protocol was used to stop greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels in developed countries. The Kyoto Protocol was replaced by the Paris Agreement in 2016. -
6th billion
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Documentary film An Inconvenient Truth released
An American film released addressing global warming and climate change. This documentary explains the greenhouse effect and how it damages the environment, as well as how humans cause many of the problems we still face today -
Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster
This disaster was caused by methane ignition, which led to a large-scale dust explosion in West Virginia. Around 210 million dollars were put forth to try to reverse the environmental damage caused by this disaster -
7th billion
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Flint Water Crisis
In Flint, Michigan, the water supply was switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The sudden change caused the pipes to corrode and release lead into the water supply, leading to lead poisoning. It led to at least 12 deaths and caused many more people to get sick. -
Black Summer
A megafire that destroyed around 10 million hectares in Southeast Australia, which was mostly forests. Biodiversity and habitats were destroyed, and many native species were nationally threatened by Black Summer -
8th billion