History of the Environmental Movement timeline

The Bishnoi movement occurred during the 1700s in the Khejarli, Marwar region and Rajasthan state of India. The whole aim of this movement was to save trees from being cut down for a new palace dedicated to the royal family. Amrita Devi enforced the movement by starting to hug trees and treat them as people and not just objects of nature. This movement embodies religion within Indian culture which also correlates with modern day views of nature conservation.

Founded on October 5, 1948 in Fontainebleau, France to promote nature conservation and the ecologically sustainable use of resources. The IUCN has global authority over the status and well-being of the environment as well as authority over taking measures needed to help the environment. The IUCN strives to promote biodiversity , climate change, and sustainable development which has improved out environment today.

Pollution is the adding substances to the environment at a faster rate than it can be recycled. Usually pollution is caused by human activities, but it can refer to things that occurs naturally as well. Since pollution has begun to be a bigger problem, there has movements to raise awareness and government action to control the amount of pollution put into the environment. These movements and cause for awareness started at the beginning of the 1950's with different actions and protests.

This city is best known for the environmental disaster as a result of the release of methyl mercury into the water produced by the Chisso Corporation's factory. The mercury contaminated almost every sea creature which in turn caused human illness when consuming the poisoned animals. The first known person to have neurological symptoms was in 1956 in Minamata, Japan. The Minamata disease can also cause birth defects such as deformed limbs and paralysis.

“Silent Spring” was true story where DDT, a chemical compound, started to damage wildlife and agriculture. Carson used this novel to raise awareness on the misuse of pesticides, as they cause significant damages to the environment. In addition, the novel suggests the need for citizens to question the government on environmental issues to preserve the world around them. Carson aimed towards jump starting the environmental movement to seek answers and question the safeness of technology.

The biggest issue about water is the water pollution aspect. There is not enough clean water for everyone in the world. Entire fish populations are dying because of the plastic and chemicals in the ocean. Today there are strict guidelines on how you can dump things. In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that ocean-based sources, had dumped 14 billion pounds of garbage into the ocean. Over 1 million seabirds and 100,000 sea mammals are killed by pollution yearly.

The Gaia Hypothesis is a theory that proposes that all living organisms interact with the physical aspects of the Earth to form a close interacting system. This system helps control the climate and biochemical changes in the Earth to maintain homeostasis.
The theory was proposed by James Lovelock. Most of the time it considers the Earth as a single organism.

This is also known as the Human Ecology theory which states that human development is influenced based on the different types of environmental systems. This theory was created by Urie Bronfenbrenner which was published in 1979. There are five systems according to this theory: micro system, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystems. This theory has influenced many people through analyzing the effects of different enviormental systems that one encounters.

In December of 1984, Bhopal faced an immense gas leak originating from the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant. The gas,spread out and affected the surrounding environment. In return, nearly 4,000 people died and over 500,000 became gravely injured. As of 2010, this leak was considered the world worst industrial disasters. Improper clean up of this still threatens the citizens living in Bhopal, leading to contamination. They are all still exposed to some of the leftover chemicals.

Whaling is the industry of hunting and killing whales for their oil, meat, whalebone,etc. In 1983, the International Whaling Commission passed a ban on commercial whaling effective in 1986. The three countries that are still whaling are Japan, Norway, and Iceland. Whaling influenced American literature, painting, fashion, and folk art. When islanders from Nantucket, killed their first sperm whale in 1712 was a big accomplishment because it was a highly prized species.

The thing people call the Chernobyl Disaster is when the nuclear reactor at the plant got overheated and, in turn, exploded. Because of the explosion, the greatest amount of radioactive gases were released in the air than ever seen before. This increase in radiation killed off 10 km^2 of forest (which quickly started to regrow the following year). However, the incident with the radiation has caused a greater amount of biodiversity and amount of species.

Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report, was a novel published in 1987 by the UN and the Oxford University Press. This combined and explained how environmental issues and politics are related to each other. It also aimed to discuss the developmental issues again is association with the environment. In all, it supported environmental development through countries around the world working together.

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), taken place in June 1992, was a conference held by the UN to rethink economic development. It aimed to achieve this by addressing poverty issues and how to stop over consuming products, both placing immense stress on the environment. Governments started to recognize this and started becoming more eco-friendly, raising awareness for production, energy sources, water scarcity, and car emissions.

Agenda 21 is a plan created by the UN to help the environment through all the levels of government (local, national, globally). This is plan was proposed in 1992 at the world summit in Rio de Jainero. The main goal of the plan is achieve global sustainable development. While being something completely optional most countries have chosen to participate in what this plan calls for.

Extending off of the UN FCCC, an international treaty called the Kyoto Protocol entailing to stabilize greenhouse gases in late 1997 and extending to 2005. This treaty was established in Kyoto, Japan and similarly tried to lower emissions and establish penalties to whomever didn't follow this rule. Although, this plan was rejected by President Bush leading to 7 years of renegotiating, but is now finally intact today and ratified by 55 countries in the UN.

The Earth Summit that occurred in 2002 was a meeting within the UN to discuss various ways to preserve natural resources and come up with new ways to help the ever-growing population. This Summit was 10 years after the 1992 summit in Rio. Instead, of mostly countries meeting up to discuss ways to help the world around people, many of the participants were Type II partnership initiatives (meaning it was open to the public).

This documentary focuses on what must be done to restore the Earth. This documentary was put together by a past United States vice president. It showed how global warming was affecting the world but humans also. It really put things in perspective about how things must change. It showed research and talked about ice cording data along with the melting ice caps. An Inconvenient Truth was also very encouraging to speak up and to try to buy a hybrid car and do all that you can to save the Earth.

Copenhagen, also called “COP-15”, was taken place in mid-December of 2009. To take safer and overall better care of the environment, this conference was held and provided numerous environmental outlines. Some of these include reducing the global temperature by two degrees, to help developing countries, and start financial planning. Over 100 world leaders attended and went through with the plan.

People have a big impact on biodiversity in ecosystems. Because of crop pollination, waste, etc, biodiversity is making a major loss. Scientists concluded that most of the world’s biodiversity level was below 90 percent. 75 percent of plant biodiversity has declined along with 75 percent of the world’s fisheries. As of 2010, the world’s birds and amphibians were less endangered than plants. Now it is about equal. Agriculture that requires deforestation can slowly wipe out an entire ecosystem.

Currently the world's population is 7.8 billion and it is constantly expanding. In 2015 there were more than 7.3 billion people. The UN estimates that the population will be around 9.2 billion by 2045. Just in 1940 there were 6 billion people, showing how quickly humans can repopulate, expanding into the Earth’s ecosystems. Human population kills the animal population for food, clothing, etc.