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The panama canal
he Panama Canal (Spanish: Canal de Panamá) is a 77.1-kilometre (48 mi) ship canal in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean (via the Caribbean Sea) to the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. There are locks at each end to lift ships up to Gatun Lake, 26 metres (85 ft) above sea level. Gatun Lake was created to reduce the amount of work required for the canal. The current locks are 33.5 metres (110 ft) wide. A third, w -
the great Smog of 52
was a severe air pollution event that affected London during December 1952. A period of cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants mostly from the use of coal to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday to Tuesday December 1952, and then dispersed quickly after a change of weather. However, government medical reports in the following weeks estimated that up until 8th December 4,000 people had died and 100,000 were ill -
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first United States test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb, detonated at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as the first test of Operation Castle.Castle Bravo was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States, with a yield of 15 megatons of TNT. That yield, far exceeding the expected yield of 4 to 6 megatons, combined with other factors, led to the most significant accidental radiological contamination ever caused by the Us -
silent spring
Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on September 27, 1962. The book is mainly about helping launch the contemporary American environmental movement. -
Palomares B-52 crash
The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash or Palomares incident occurred on 17 January 1966, when a B-52G bomber of the USAF Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refuelling at 31,000 feet (9,450 m) over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain. The KC-135 was completely destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members aboard. -
1st Earth Day
Founded in 1970 as a day of education about environmental issues, Earth Day is now a globally celebrated holiday that is sometimes extended into Earth Week, a full seven days of events focused on green awareness. The brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson and inspired by the antiwar protests of the late 1960s, Earth Day was originally aimed at creating a mass environmental movement. It began as a "national teach-in on the environment" and was held on April 22 -
The Love Canal
was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, located in the LaSalle section of the city. It officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River one-quarter mile to the south. In the mid-1970s Love Canal became the subject of national and international attention after it was revealed in the press -
Tragedy of the Commons
is the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to the group's long-term best interests. The concept is often cited in connection with sustainable development, meshing economic growth and environmental protection, as well as in the debate over global warming. "Commons" can include the atmosphere, oceans, rivers, fish stocks, national parks, a -
Environmental Protection Agency
Is an agency of the U.S. federal government which was created for the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate. The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and congress -
Ecocide in Vietnam
The neologism ecocide can be used to refer to any extensive destruction of the natural environment and disruption or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory to such an extent that the survival of the inhabitants of that territory is endangered. Ecocide can be irreversible when an ecosystem suffers beyond self healing. -
The Seveso Disaster
in a small chemical manufacturing plant approximately 15 km (9.3 mi) north of Milan in the Lombardy region in Italy. It resulted in the highest known exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) in residential populationswhich gave rise to numerous scientific studies and standardized industrial safety regulations. The EU industrial safety regulations are known as the Seveso II Directive. -
Amoco Cadiz
Amoco Cadiz contained 1,604,500 barrels (219,797 tons) of light crude oil from Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia and Kharg Island, Iran. Severe weather resulted in the complete breakup of the ship before any oil could be pumped out of the wreck, resulting in her entire cargo of crude oil (belonging to Shell) and 4,000 tons of fuel oil being spilled into the sea. -
Three Mile Island Nuclear Explosion
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown which occurred in one of the two Three Mile Island nuclear reactors in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States, on March 28, 1979. It was the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history.The partial meltdown resulted in the release of small amounts of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment. Epidemiology studies have not linked a single instance of cancer with the accident -
The Bhopal disaster
The Bhopal disaster, also referred to as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a gas leak incident in India, considered the world's worst industrial disaster. It occurred on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals. The toxic substance made its way in and around the shanty towns located near the plant.Estimates vary on the death toll. death toll was 2,259. -
The Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster (Ukrainian: Чорнобильська катастрофа, Chornobylska Katastrofa – Chornobyl Catastrophe) was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (then officially the Ukrainian SSR), which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities of the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe. -
Exxon Valdez oil spill
The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef at 00:04 local time and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels of crude oil over the next few days. -
The Kuwait Oil Fires
The Kuwaiti oil fires were caused by Iraqi military forces setting fire to more than 600 oil wells as part of a scorched earth policy while retreating from Kuwait in 1991 after invading the country but being driven out by Coalition military forces (see Gulf War). The fires started in January and February 1991 and the last one was extinguished by November 1991. -
baia mare cyanide spill
The 2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill was a leak of cyanide near Baia Mare, Romania, into the Someş River by the gold mining company Aurul, a joint-venture of the Australian company Esmeralda Exploration and the Romanian government.The polluted waters eventually reached the Tisza and then the Danube, killing large numbers of fish in Hungary and Yugoslavia. The spill has been called the worst environmental disaster in Europe since the Chernobyl disaster. -
The Shrinking of the Aral Sea
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union undertook a major water diversion project on the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The region’s two major rivers, fed by snowmelt and precipitation in faraway mountains, were used to transform the desert into farms for cotton and other crops. Before the project, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya rivers flowed down from the mountains, cut northwest through the Kyzylkum Desert, and finally pooled together in the lowest part of the basin. -
Minamata Disease
is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning. Symptoms include ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, narrowing of the field of vision, and damage to hearing and speech. In extreme cases, insanity, paralysis, coma, and death follow within weeks of the onset of symptoms. A congenital form of the disease can also affect foetuses in the womb. -
The Al-mishraq Fire
A fire accidentally ignited at the Mishraq State Sulfur Mine Plant in Iraq. The fire burned for approximately 3 weeks, and a smoke plume was visible on satellite imagery for miles. The plume contained various contaminants including particulate matter and varying concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). Satellite photos demonstrated that the smoke plume direction, length, and opacity varied throughout the 3 week time frame. -
Jilin Chemical Plant Explosions
were a series of explosions which occurred on November 13, 2005, in the No.101 Petrochemical Plant in Jilin City, Jilin Province, China, over the period of an hour. The explosions killed six, injured dozens, and caused the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents.The blasts created an 80 km long toxic slick in the Songhua River, a tributary of the Amur. The slick, predominantly made up of benzene and nitrobenzene, passed through the Amur River over subsequent weeks. -
an inconvenient truth
Premiering at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and opening in New York City and Los Angeles on May 24, 2006, the documentary was a critical and box-office success, winning 2 Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song.[4] The film grossed $24 million in the U.S. and $26 million in the foreign box office, becoming the 9th highest grossing documentary film to date in the United States.[5] -
Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill
The TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill occurred just before 1 a.m. on Monday December 22, 2008, when an ash dike ruptured at an 84-acres solid waste containment area at the Tennessee Valley. 1.1 billion US gallons of coal fly ash slurry was released.The slurry traveled across the Emory River and its Swan Pond embayment, on to the opposite shore, covering up to 300 acres of the surrounding land, damaging homes and flowing up and down stream in nearby waterways. -
Deep Water Horizon BP oil Spill
began in April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, estimated to be between 8% and 31% larger in volume than the earlier Ixtoc I oil spill Following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which claimed 11 lives, a sea-floor oil gusher flowed for 87 days, until it was capped on 15 July 2010.The total discharge is estimated at 4.9 million barrels -
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Fukushima Daiichi one of the 15 largest nuclear power stations in the world. The plant suffered major damage from the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. The incident permanently damaged several reactors making them impossible to restart. Due to the political climate, the remaining reactors will not be restarted. The disaster disabled the reactor cooling systems, leading to releases of radioactivity and triggering a 30 km evacuation zone surrounding the plant. -
Sidoarjo mud flow
Sidoarjo wherein lumpur is the Indonesian word for mud) is the result of an erupting mud volcano[ in the subdistrict of Porong, Sidoarjo in East Java, Indonesia that has been in eruption since May 2006. It is the biggest mud volcano in the world; responsibility for it was credited to the blowout of a natural gas well drilled by PT Lapindo Brantas, although some scientists and company officials contend it was caused by a distant earthquake. -
Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone
The Gulf of Mexico dead zone is an area of hypoxic (link to USGS definition) (less than 2 ppm dissolved oxygen) waters at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Its area varies in size, but can cover up to 6,000-7,000 square miles. The zone occurs between the inner and mid-continental shelf in the northern Gulf of Mexico, beginning at the Mississippi River delta and extending westward to the upper Texas coast. -
The three Gorges dam
The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, China. The Three Gorges Dam is the world's largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW). In 2012, the amount of electricity the dam generated was similar to the amount generated by the Itaipu Dam -
E-waste In Guiyu, China
Guiyu, in Guangdong Province, China, is made up of four small villages. It is the location of what may be the largest electronic waste (e-waste) site on earth. In 2005 there were 60,000 e-waste workers in Guiyu who processed the more than 100 truckloads that were transported to the 52 square kilometre area every day.Guiyu is nicknamed the "electronic graveyard"
