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1388
First Urban Sanitary Laws
In the Middle Ages, Parliament passed the first law which forbade the discarding of filth or garbage into ditches, rivers, and other bodies of water. This helped begin the improvement of sanitation in the ecosystem and with humans. -
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Population Increase Overtime (billions)
It took until 1804, for the world to reach a total population of 1 billion but then only took 100 years after to reach 2 billion in 1927 and only accelerated from there. 3 billion in 1959, 4 billion 1974, 5 billion 1987, 6 billion 1999, and now around 7 billion. “We're adding a billion population every 12 years.” -
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Water Pollution
1830-1890 - industrial revolution water pollution carried diseases in which people didn’t know why until the 1880’s.
1933- Greenpeace observers photographed Russian ship TNT-27 dumping 900 tons of low-level radioactive waste off the east coast of Russia in the Sea of Japan.
1970-1980 – water pollution was greatly decreased due to a massive sewage treatment expansion program that was put into place. -
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Against Deforestation Acts
In the early 1900's the US created a federal forest reserve of many million acres of forests and created many acts to protect their forests. People would begin fighting to save their forests. Actions against logging ranged from the rain forest of New Zealand, to Alaska's National Forest, to trees in the Himalayas. Some of the protests work and some didn't, Mexico lost almost 3 million acres of forest and jungle every year between 1993 and 2000. -
National Coast Anti-Pollution League
As president of the National Coast Anti-Pollution League, Pinchot helped organize a coalition of civic officials from coastal communities to oppose oil dumping at sea. Signifying another shift in environmental values. -
Founding of IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an organization created to conserve nature and its safety. “...75 sovereign states and 800 nongovernmental organizations, IUCN functions as an intergovernmental organization at the transnational level while operationally embodying the maxim "think globally, act locally," IUCN acts as a consortium of environmental scientists and professionals...” -
Air Pollution
Era of enlightenment- (1700’s-1800’s) people began to protest the lack of clean air from factories and expansion. For example, from burning wood and coal, dust from construction, and methane emissions from livestock. Congress passed the Air Pollution Control Act which was replaced in 1963 by the clean air act. -
Minamata
The Minamata Disease (Japan) occurred, displaying the worst case of Mercury Poisoning in history thus far. The disease appeared in the water causing people to contract the poisoning leading to lesions in the brain. “The destruction of nerve tissue was prominent in the anterior portions of the calcarine cortex.” (tissue damage around the occipital area of the brain) -
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
This is a book on environmental studies of the uses of pesticides. “Carson was an accomplished marine biologist who worked for many years for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.” “...a breakthrough book that transformed people's conceptions of the place of science in the natural world.” -
The 1st National Earth Day
Co-Chaired by Pete McClosky and it was coordinated by Dennis Hayes. This first earth day takes a form of a nationwide protest environmental ignorance. This Ultimately is going to be the largest demonstration ever in American History. -
Gaia Hypothesis
Developed largely by British chemist James E. Lovelock and U.S. biologist Lynn Margulis. It postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth’s environment that promotes life overall; the Earth is homeostatic in support of life-sustaining conditions. -
DDT is banned in the United States
After 10 years of legislative battles the DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) is banned in the United States. This was developed as one of the first synthetic insecticides that was used for many medicines, but the proved to cause liver cancer and other dangerous diseases. With the ban, the Administrator of the EPA , William D. Ruckelshaus, stated his conviction that “the continued massive use of DDT posed unacceptable risks to the environment and potential harm to human health.” -
Whaling (Save The Whales)
The save The Whales Organization focuses on preventing the act of whaling which is hunting whales to butcher them for their meat and blubber which can be made into oil which has been used highly during the industrial revolution. This act is endangering innocent creatures. "...focuses on educating the public, especially children, about marine mammals and the fragile ocean environment." -
Earth Day Organizer Head of Solar Energy Research
President Carter making Denis Hayes the earth day organizer the head of solar energy research and he allows billions for solar energy research. This project allows them to rethink our whole energy situation. But this funding from the government is cut under the Ronald Reagan administration. -
Bhopal (disaster)
The Union carbide’s pesticide plant (manufacturer of petrochemicals) in Bhopal, India experienced almost the worst accident in industrial history. “...methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the plant and spread over a populated area, killing at least 2,000 people at the time of the accident and causing an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 subsequent deaths.” -
Chernobyl
An accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the explosions it triggered caused a major release of nuclear radioactive material into the atmosphere. The Chernobyl fallout had a major impact on both agricultural and natural ecosystems in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, as well as in many other European countries. “...28 people died within a few weeks as a result of acute radiation syndrome.” -
Ocean Dumping Ban Act
President Reagan makes the Ocean dumping ban act. This makes a huge difference in the ocean community because most of our land waste was getting dumped in the water. -
Setback Due to Bush Administration
The Bush Administration opposed many of the previously established acts such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act and approved mountaintop removal mining, signifying an apparent shift from environmental to perhaps economic concern. This shows some views from those who see environmental destruction not as a concern but a payload. -
An Inconvenient Truth (documentary film)
Is and Oscar-winning documentary on the environment explained by Al Gore what humans have done to mess up the Earth and how it needs to be fixed. The topics discussed in the film circulate around, “...the greenhouse effect, changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations throughout history, human energy use and population growth...”. -
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Kyoto
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement to the UN’s convention on climate change. The goal of the treaty is “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropocentric interference with the climate system.”