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San Francisco earthquake
Ranking at a 7.9 magnitude earthquake, the less than a minute event was disastrous. It caused many fires and destroyed nearly 500 blocks. It killed an estimated 3,000 people and left around 400,000 people homeless. -
Great Molasses Flood
It occurred in Boston after a tanker collapsed and spilled more than 2 million gallons of molasses through the city. The molasses quickly sank to the bottom of the ocean, suffocating the fish by absorbing the oxygen. -
Dust Bowl
It was caused by poor and aggressive farming techniques, along with drought conditions and high winds that caused massive sandstorms. It spread across sections of the Great Plains. It ended by the abate of the drought in 1938. -
Founding of IUCN
It was the first global environmental union, and it helped share a goal to protect and conserve nature. -
Great Smog
This event lasted about a week and caused many respiratory illnesses after breathing the thick smog. It cost between 4,000-10,000 lives. -
Minamata
Caused by heavily contaminated fish and shellfish that were consumed. They were polluted by toxic chemicals from a factory that were dumped into water systems. -
Silent Spring Published
The book looks at the heavy pollution in the United States. Starts environmental movement. -
Fire on the Cuyahoga River
The river was so polluted that it caught on fire. Helped spark water pollution control activities like the Clean Water Act. -
Clean Air Act
Congress authorizes EPA to set standards for national air quality, auto emissions, and anti-pollution standards. It helped prevent more than 200,000 deaths from lead, sulfur dioxide and other harmful substances. -
Whaling
Act of killing whales for their meat and other body parts to be sold in trade. Caused a depletion of marine species. -
Bhopal
This was caused when about 45 tons of gas called methyl isocyanate leaked into the air. This was caused by substandard operating and understaffing. Estimated 15,000-20,000 people died, and about 500,000 suffered respiratory problems, blindness, and other issues. -
Ozone hole discovery
Human activities caused the hole through the use of gases like chlorofluorocarbons. It sparked an environmental movement in the 1980s and led to the ban of CFCs. -
Chernobyl
A reactor went out of control during a test at low power, resulting in an explosion and fire that demolished the reactor building, which also released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. The town of Chernobyl was evacuated, but still caused radiation sickness and contamination. -
Exxon Valdez oil spill
An oil tanker called the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska, causing an oil spill of 11 million gallons of oil. This disaster caused many sea life and animal deaths. -
Hurricane Andrew
It was a category 5 hurricane that hit South Florida. Winds were found to be 165 miles per hour. The storm hit South Louisiana and the Bahamas, but the most impactful was when it hit Dade County. About 250,000 people were left homeless because of it. -
Kyoto
It states that the industrialized countries must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to below what they were in 1990. It was the first major attempt to slow climate change. -
Peru's Amazon Degradation
Peru lost 3.86 million hectares of tree coverage to deforestation, causing an increase of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. -
An Inconvenient Truth
Was written to make known about how greenhouse gas emissions need to end. -
8 Billion people
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Hawaii wildfires
It was caused when power lines fell, erupting in flames. It destroyed the town of Lahaina and caused an estimated 106 deaths.