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Tragedy of the Commons
- a theory which individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by depleting some common resource
- In 1833 William Forster Lloyd published a pamphlet on herders sharing a common parcel of land on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze
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The Panama Canal
- is a 77.1-kilometre ship canal in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean
- The Panama Canal had its 100-year anniversary on August 15, 2014
- It takes between 20 and 30 hours to traverse the canal
- Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduced the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
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libby montana asbestos contamination
- a town discovering and then coping with toxic asbestos dust from the vermiculite mines
- In the fall of 1999, writer Andrew Schneider broke the story November 18, 1999 and November 19, 1999 issues that revealed there had been hundreds of illnesses and deaths in the Libby community over the past 70 years resulting from occupational and non-occupational environmental exposures to asbestos associated with Libby's vermiculite mining and milling operations
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The Love Canal
- it became the subject of national and international attention after it was revealed in the press that the site had formerly been used to bury 21,000 tons of toxic waste by Hooker Chemical Company
- a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, located in the LaSalle section of the city
- no specific date
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the Great Smog of 52
- thick fog engulfed was mixed with black smoke emitted from homes and factories to create a deadly smog
- Londoners were not shocked to find themselves surrounded by such thick smog. Yet, although the dense smog did not instill panic, it nearly shut down the city from December 5 to December 9, 1952.
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Castle Bravo
- Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first United States test of a dry fuel, hydrogen bomb, detonated on March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as the first test of Operation Castle
- Castle Bravo was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States
- expected yield of 4 to 8 megatons (6 Mt predicted),[1] combined with other factors, led to the most significant accidental radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States
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The Shrinking of the Aral Sea
- the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects
- By 2007, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes
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Ecocide in Vietnam
- American military strategists set out to deliberately destroy much of the farmland and rice paddies that fed the enemy and the jungle environment that hid their troops
- in order to do this they used powerful chemical herbicides
- this all happened between 1964 and 1975
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The Palomares Incident
- a B-52G bomber of the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refuelling at 31,000 feet over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain
- The KC-135 was completely destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members aboard
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1st Earth Day
- It became the first opportunity they had to join in a nationwide demonstration to send a big message to public officials--a message to tell them to protect our planet
- Earth Day was originally aimed at creating a mass environmental movement
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Environmental Protection Agency
- one agency of a variety of federal research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection
- in 2011 it initiated a permitting program that placed the first limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, refineries, and other large, stationary sources
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Door to Hell
- a natural gas field in Derweze, Ahal Province, Turkmenistan
- this is noted for its natural gas fire which has been burning continuously since it was lit by Soviet petrochemical engineers in 1971
- this crater is 69 metres wide and 30 metres deep
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The Seveso Disaster
- an industrial accident that occurred around 12:37 pm July 10, 1976, in a small chemical manufacturing plant approximately 15 kilometres north of Milan in the Lombardy region in Italy
- resulted in the highest known exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin in residential populations
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Amoco Cadiz
- Amoco Cadiz contained 1,604,500 barrels (219,797 tons) of light crude oil from Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia and Kharg Island, Iran
- was a very large crude carrier (VLCC) under the Liberian flag of convenience owned by Amoco
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the three mile island nuclear explosion
- In 1979 at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in USA a cooling malfunction caused part of the core to melt in the # 2 reactor. The TMI-2 reactor was destroyed.
- Some radioactive gas was released a couple of days after the accident, but not enough to cause any dose above background levels to local residents.
- There were no injuries or adverse health effects from the Three Mile Island accident
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The Bhopal Disaster
- a gas leak incident in India
- Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and other chemicals
- The cause of the disaster remains under debate
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The Chernobyl Nuclear Explosion
- The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel
- The resulting steam explosion and fires released at least 5% of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere and downwind
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The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
- At 12:04 am, the ship struck a reef, tearing open the hull and releasing 11 million gallons of oil into the environment
- Eventually, more than 1,000 miles of coastline were fouled, and hundreds of thousands of animals perished
- captain, Joseph Hazelwood, was acquitted of being intoxicated while at the helm, but convicted on a misdemeanor charge of negligent discharge of oil, fined $50,000, and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service
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The Kuwait Oil Fires
- were caused by Iraqi military forces setting fire to a reported 605 to 732 oil wells along with an unspecified number[quantify] of oil filled low-lying areas, such as "oil lakes" and "fire trenches"
- The fires were started in January and February 1991, and the first well fires were extinguished in early April 1991, with the last well capped on November 6, 1991
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The Three Gorges Dam
- March 25, 2008 is when it opened
- a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China
- the dam project was completed and fully functional as of July 4, 2012
- the dam is intended to increase the Yangtze River's shipping capacity and reduce the potential for floods downstream by providing flood storage space
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Baia Mare Cyanide Spill
- On the night of January 30, 2000, a dam holding contaminated waters burst and 100,000 cubic metres of cyanide-contaminated water (containing an estimated 100 tonnes spilled over some farmland and then into the Someș river
- Large quantities of fish died due to the toxicity of cyanide in the waters of the rivers, affecting 62 species of fish
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Minamata Disease
- Minamata disease, sometimes referred to as Chisso-Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning
- caused by the release of methylmercury in the industrial wastewater from the Chisso Corporation's chemical factory, which continued from 1932 to 1968
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The Al-mishraq Fire
- June 2003, it was the site of the largest human-made release of sulfur dioxide ever recorded when a fire gained control and burned for almost a month
- Al-Mishraq is a state run sulfur plant
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E-waste in Guiyu, China
- In 2005 there were 60,000 e-waste workers in Guiyu who processed the more than 100 truckloads that were transported to the 52 square kilometre area every day
- operations in Guiyu are toxic and dangerous to workers' health with 80 % of children suffering from lead poisoning - ---- Above-average miscarriage rates are also reported in the region
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Jilin Chemical Plant Expolsions
- The chemical plant’s explosions occurred for over an hour and affected hundreds of thousands of people throughout the Jilin province
- The explosion eventually created an 80 km long toxic chemical slick made up of benzene,nitrobenzene, and aniline.
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"An inconvenient Truth"
- a look at former Vice President Al Gore's fervent crusade to halt global warming
- won two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song
- it was the ninth highest grossing documentary film to date in the United States
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Sidoarjo Mud flow
- The Sidoarjo Mudflow is an ongoing eruption of gas and mud in East Java, Indonesia
- a second stage of drilling began and the drill string went deeper, to about 2,834 m this time without a protective casing, after which water, steam and a small amount of gas erupted at a location about 200 m southwest of the well
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TVA kingston Fossil Plant Coal Fly Ash Slurry Spill
- occurred just before 1 a.m Monday December 22, 2008
- An ash dike ruptured at an 84-acre solid waste containment area in Tennesse
- 1.1 billion US gallons of caol fly ash was released
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Deep water horizon BP oil spill
- is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, an estimated 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previously largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill
- During thie spill it took eleven peoples lives
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Fukushima Daiichi
- March 2011 no specific date -hundreds of thousands of epople are still exposed to the long-term radioactive- contamination
- daily lives are disrupted
- some lost thre homes, jobs, business, farms, and communites
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Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone
- More than 200 million gallons of oil fouled the ocean and Gulf coastlines
- more than 82,000 birds; about 6,000 sea turtles; nearly 26,000 marine mammals, including dolphins; and an unknown, massive number of fish and invertebrates may have been harmed by the spill and its aftermath
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Pacific Gyre Garbage Patch
- this contains some of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other things that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre
- The patch extends over an indeterminate area which estimates ranging very widely depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define the affected area.
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Silent Spring
- made revoluntionary changes in the laws affectung our air, land and water
- First published in the New Yorker June of 1962 -Book appeared in September of 1962
