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John Muir
Founded Sierra Club in 1892, fought unsuccessfully to prevent the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. -
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Enviromental Treaties & People
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Civilian Conservation Corps established
The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25. -
Dirty Thirties Begin
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands in the 1930s. -
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
The United States Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act is a set of laws passed by Congress in 1938 giving authority to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to oversee the safety of food, drugs, and cosmetics. -
US Fish And Wildlife Service
Created to manage National Wilflife Refugee system and protect endangered species -
Everglade National Park Established
Everglades National Park was established in 1947 to conserve the natural landscape and prevent further degradation of its land, plants, and animals. -
Aldo Leopold
wrote A Sand County Almanac published a year after his death in 1948; promoted a "Land Ethic" in which humans are ethically responsible for serving as the protectors of nature -
Air Pollution Disaster In Denora, Pennsylvania
The disaster took place over the course of five days, when weather conditions known as a temperature inversion trapped cooled coal smoke and pollution from a zinc smelter and steel mill beneath a layer of warm air over the river valley that enclosed the two towns and the surrounding farmland. Almost half of the area's 14,000 residents reported becoming ill and about two dozen deaths were attributed to the badly polluted air -
Nature Conservancy Formed
Founded in 1950, The Nature Conservancy works in more than 30 countries, including all 50 states of the United States. The Conservancy has over one million members, and has protected more than 119 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of rivers worldwide. The Nature Conservancy also operates more than 100 marine conservation projects globally -
Rachel Carson
Published Silent Spring in 1962; documented the environmental damage done by DDT and other pesticides. Which heightened public awareness at the start of the modern environmental movement -
Garrett Hardin
14 Apr 1968 Published "The Tragedy of the Commons" in the journal Science in 1968, argued that rational people will exploit shared resources (commons). -
National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act
The National Wild and Scenic Rivers System was created by Congress in 1968 (Public Law 90-542; 16 U.S.C. 1271 et seq.) to preserve certain rivers with outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational values in a free-flowing condition for the enjoyment of present and future generations. -
National Environmental Policy Act
NEPA's most significant effect was to set up procedural requirements for all federal government agencies to prepare environmental assessments (EAs) and environmental impact statements (EISs). EAs and EISs contain statements of the environmental effects of proposed federal agency actions -
Clean Air Act
The Clean Air Act is a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. It requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and enforce regulations to protect the public from airborne contaminants known to be hazardous to human health -
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act
The objective of FIFRA is to provide federal control of pesticide distribution, sale, and use. All pesticides used in the United States must be registered (licensed) by EPA. Registration assures that pesticides will be properly labeled and that, if used in accordance with specifications, they will not cause unreasonable harm to the environment -
U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act
The 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act established a Federal responsibility to conserve marine mammals with management vested in the Department of Interior for sea otter, walrus, polar bear, dugong, and manatee. The Department of Commerce is responsible for cetaceans and pinnipeds, other than the walrus -
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation." -
Safe Drinking Water Act
test. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is the principal federal law in the United States intended to ensure safe drinking water for the public. Pursuant to the act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required to set standards for drinking water quality and oversee all states, localities, and water suppliers who implement these standards. -
Resource Conservation & Recovery Act
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) gives EPA the authority to control hazardous waste from the "cradle-to-grave." This includes the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste -
Low-Level Radioactivity Policy Act
The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act (LLRWPA) established the legal and regulatory framework governing the disposal of low-level radioactive waste in the United States -
Nuclear Waste Policy Act
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 is a United States federal law which established a comprehensive national program for the safe, permanent disposal of highly radioactive wastes. -
Montreal Protocol
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (a protocol to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer) is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion -
Ocean Dumping Ban Act
The Ocean Dumping Ban Act, enacted in 1988, significantly amended portions of the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 and banned ocean dumping of municipal sewage sludge and industrial waste (with limited exceptions) by phased target dates -
Food Quality Protection Act
The FQPA standardized the way the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would manage the use of pesticides and amended the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. It mandated a health-based standard for pesticides used in foods, provided special protections for babies and infants, streamlined the approval of safe pesticides, established incentives for the creation of safer pesticides, and required that pesticide registrations remain current -
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international treaty that sets binding obligations on industrialized countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases
