ESS Timeline Important Events

By esswillem

  • The passenger Pigeon becomes extinct

    Conservation movement grows. Concern for tigers, rhinoceros, etc...

  • Dustbowl in North America 1930's and 1940's

    Recognition that agricultural practices may affect soils and climate.

  • Green revolution - Intensive technological agriculture

    Resource us (especially fossil fuel use) and pollution increased. Human population is sharply.

  • Leopold writes 'a sand county almanac'

    Concept of 'stewardship' is applied to nature.

  • UK's ten National Parks are established

    Recognition of need to conserve natural areas.

  • Great Smog of London

    A period of cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants—mostly arising from the use of coal—to form a thick layer of smog over the city.

  • Minamata Bay Disaster 1956-1968

    Emphasizes the ability of food chains to accumulate toxins into higher trophic levels, including into humans.
  • Period: to

    NGO's gain greater following

    Public awareness grows. WWGN, Greanpeace, friends of the earth all formed.

  • Rachel Carson publishes 'silent spring'

    General acceptance of dangers of chemical toxins affecting humans. The pesticide DDT is banned.

  • First Earth Summit - UN conference on the human environment

    Declaration of UN conference. Action plan for the human environment. Environment fund established. Formation of UN environment programme (UNEP). Earth summits planned at ten-year intervals.

  • C.I.T.E.S formed by IUCN

    endangered species protected from international trade.

  • Environmental Philosophy Established mid 1970's

    Recognition that nature has its own intrinsic value. Stewardship ethic grows.

  • Nairobi Earth Summit

    ineffective.

  • UN World comission on environment and development publishes the brundtland report

    sustainability established as the way forward.

  • Bhopal Disaster

    World's industrial disaster.

  • Chernobyl Disaster

    nuclear fallout affects millions.

  • Montreal Protocol

    Summary:
    The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer: is a landmark international agreement designed to protect the stratospheric ozone layer. The treaty was originally signed in 1987 and substantially amended in 1990 and 1992. The Montreal Protocol stipulates that the production and consumption of compounds that deplete ozone in the stratosphere--chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

  • Clean Air Act

    Related to PM10:
    The Clean Air Act is a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. It is one of the United States' first and most influential modern environmental laws, and one of the most comprehensive air quality laws in the world.
    Targeted to reduce sulfur dioxide levels. Nitrogen oxides were also aimed to be reduced. Coal power burning stations were targeted.

  • Kyoto Protocol

    The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the premise that (a) global warming exists and (b) human-made CO2 emissions have caused it. It was signed in 1997
    It was effective in 16 February 2005