History of the Environmental Movement

By groupdripdrip

  • Minamata

    The Minamata disease is a widespread epidemic in Japan where a corporations factory leaked its waste water into the bay causing vast environmental damage present to this day.

  • Redwoods

    The Save the Redwoods foundation is created in order to save redwood trees, of which almost 60% of Redwoods in California benefit from.

  • The Dust Bowl

    Many dust storms wreaked havoc upon the North American prairie, which heavily damaged ecology and caused a widespread drought.

  • Hiroshima Nagasaki

    In the final stages of World War 2, The U.S. dropped two nuclear weapons on Hiroshima. This was devastating, and concluded the results of the war.

  • The Founding of IUCN

    The IUCN was founded in 1948 in order to bring awareness to the conservation of nature. There are many members across the world, even today.

  • Nuclear Powerplant

    The first nuclear powerplant is built in order to generate electricity, and later on had an extreme accident in Windscale, England.

  • WWF

    The World Wildlife Fund was created as a charity in Switzerland. It was used to to promote conservation, research, and restoration of the natural environment.

  • Rachel Carson's Silent Spring Published

    Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring is a documentation of environmental damage as result of pesticides and other environmental harming chemicals.

  • Rhine river, Europe

    An accidental spill of insecticide in the Rhine river in 1969 contaminated more than 600 km of it and killed almost 20 million fish.

  • Seveso Disaster

    In Italy, a chemical manufacturing plant malfunctioned and resulted in the highest known exposure of TCDD(a cancer-causing herbicide used in the Vietnam War).

  • Save the Whales

    Founded to protect not only whales but many endangered or 'at risk' species.

  • Bhopal

    There was a gas leak in which 5,200 citizens died and many were left with injuries.

  • Cherynobyl

    A surge of power caused a fire which then released mass amounts of radioactive materials into the environment. The area never recovered.

  • Kyoto

    The Kyoto agreement brought nations to agree on greenhouse gas emissions.

  • Deep Water Horizon Spill

    The damage of the oil spill was the largest marine oil spill in history, topping off 68,000 square miles. Everything was desecrated, completely covered in oil.

  • Mount Pollie Mine Disaster

    24 million cubic meters of mine waste leaked into Pollie Lake.

  • Red Tide

    The Red Tide in the U.S. has killed 300 tons of ocean wildlife, and the government has stated that Florida is under a wide state of emergency.