Environmental Systems and Societies Environment Movement Timeline

  • First Billion People

  • Second Billion People

  • Clean Water Act

    -regulates discharges of pollutants into the waters
    -has implements many acts about pollution in the waters
  • Founding of IUNC

    -brought together government and civil society organisms within a shared goal to protect nature
    -IUCN has made lots of developments to help the society and protect nature
    -also have partnered with tons of government agencies to make sure nature is protected
  • Minamata

    -methylmercury poisoning occurred when people ate fish and shellfish from the contaminated MeHg water from the chemical plant
    -Minamata waters had high levels of MeHg which caused a variety of brain damages
  • Third Billion People

  • Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring"

    -true story based on DDT impacting wildlife badly
    -tells about how much damage the wildlife has undergone and how huhmans need to act on it now
  • The Club of Rome

    -address multiple crises facing humanity and the planet
    -group of people who go around the world and inform/help people understand what they can to do to help the planet
  • Gaia Hypothesis

    -Earth’s surface is maintained in a habitable state by self-regulating feedback mechanisms
    - living organisms on the planet interact with their surrounding environment
  • Stockholm Conference (June 5-14, 1972)

    -first conference to make the environment a major issue
    -discussed what human can do to help the environment and what is happening with the environment
  • Fourth Billion People

  • CERCLA

    -Created tax on chemical and petroleum industries
    -Made sure that the industries didn’t produce too many chemicals and petroleum
  • Bhopal

    -a union Carbide pesticide plant released tons of methyl isocyanate gas into the air
    -resulting in over 16000 deaths and many blinded
  • Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior

    -French spies bombed the ship
    -the french denied bombing and later Britain found out that the president of France agreed
    -president said he would not bomb anymore, months later resumed bombing and the rainbow warriors began to protest
  • Chernobyl

    -happened due to flawed design by personnel
    -released radioactive gasses causing acute radiation syndrome and thyroid cancer
  • Fifth Billion People

  • Our Common Future

    -reports on the environment changes of the year
    - renamed to the world commission on the environment
  • Exxon Valdez oil spill on coral reef

    -oil spill by Exxon and was the worst oil spill in history
    -covered 1300 miles of water and killed hundreds to thousands of animals
  • UN Earth (Rio) Summit (June 3-14, 1992)

    -was a conference with the most world leaders
    -about the pursuit of economic development in ways to protect Earth’s environment and nonrenewable resources
  • Whaling (save the whales)

    -goal is to preserve and protect the whales by going to local places and handing out information about the whaling incidents
  • Sixth Billion People

  • Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (August 29-September 4, 2002 )

    -conference about how we can achieve respect for the environment
    -provisions on many environmental disasters such as, Kyoto and reducing Greenhouse gasses
  • An Inconvenient Truth

    -how global warming works and how we need to act now before it gets any worse and is too late
  • Energy independence and security act

    -goal is to reduce energy and replace it with clean renewable resources
  • Seventh Billion People

  • Kyoto

    -happened because Shinji accused them of stealing a novel he wrote
    -bought 33 gallons of gasoline and set animation studio to fire
    -had mental illnesses and was known for things like this
  • 7.6 Billion People