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Tragedy of the Commons
In economics, the 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. -
Libby, Montana Asbestos Contamination
Libby, Montana, is the story of a town discovering and then coping with toxic asbestos dust from the vermiculite mines that supplied jobs to more than 200 residents and helped Libby prosper for decades. Libby residents have suffered with asbestos-related diseases like mesothelioma, but their story is ongoing. Victims continue to surface. And there are Libby residents who realize they, too, may be in danger. -
Great Smog
he Great Smog of '52 or Big Smoke[1] was a severe air pollution event that affected London during December 1952 -
The Love Canal
Love Canal was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, located in the LaSalle section of the city. Hooker Chemical sold the site to the Niagara Falls School Board in 1953 for $1, with a deed explicitly detailing the presence of the waste -
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first United States test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb, detonated on March 1, 1954, 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 (and just under one-third the energy of the most powerful ever detonated), with a yield of 15 megatons of TNT -
Minamata Disease
Minamata disease was first discovered in Minamata city in Kumamoto prefecture, Japan, in 1956. -
Silent Spring
a book written by Rachel Carson identifying the dangers of insecticides and pesticides -
The Palomares Incident
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 ay
Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on April 22, on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970, and is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network,[1] and celebrated in more than 192 countries each year -
Environmental Protection Agency
Since 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency has protected public health by setting and enforcing standards to protect the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink. -
The Door to Hell
The Door to Hell is a natural gas field in Derweze (also spelled Darvaza, meaning "gate"), Ahal Province, Turkmenistan. The Door to Hell is noted for its natural gas fire which has been burning continuously since it was lit by Soviet petrochemical scientists in 1971, fed by the rich natural gas deposits in the area. The pungent smell of burning sulfur pervades the area for some distance. -
ecocide in vietnam
use of Agent Orange in Vietnam war -
The Seveso Disaster
he Seveso disaster was an industrial accident that occurred around 12:37 pm July 10, 1976, in a small chemical manufacturing plant approximately 15 km (9.3 mi) north of Milan in the Lombardy region in Italy -
Amoco Cadiz oil spill
The Amoco Cadiz ran aground on Portsall Rocks, 5 km (3.1 mi) from the coast of Brittany, France, on 16 March 1978, and ultimately split in three and sank, all together resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date -
The 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 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.[1] It occurred on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. -
The Chernobyl Nuclear Explosion
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. -
Pacific Gyre Garbage Patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also described as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is a gyre of marine debris in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N and 42N -
5. The 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[1] local time and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels (41,000 to 119,000 m3) of crude oil[2][3] over the next few days -
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 -
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. -
Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone
The high estimate would exceed the largest ever reported 8,481 square miles in 2002 -
The Al-mishraq Fire
Al-Mishraq is a state run sulfur plant near Mosul, Iraq. In June 2003, it was the site of the largest human-made release of sulfur dioxide ever recorded when a fire (thought to have been deliberately started) gained control and burned for almost a month. -
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.[1] 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 -
Jilin Chemical Plant Explosions
The 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. -
sidoarjo mud flow
The Sidoarjo mud flow or Lapindo mud (informally abbreviated as Lusi, a contraction of Lumpur 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 cont -
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate made in the film, he has given more than a thousand times -
The Shrinking of the Aral Sea
Formerly one of the four largest lakes in the world with an area of 68,000 square kilometres (26,300 sq mi), the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects. By 2007, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes – the North Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the once far larger South Aral Sea, and one smaller lake between the North and South Aral Seas -
TVA Kingston Fossil Plant Coal Fly Ash Slurry Spill
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Deep water horizon BP oil spill
he Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the BP oil disaster, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the Macondo blowout) was an oil spill that 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, wh -
Fukushima Daiichi
this was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant
measured Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale -
3 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. [3][4]
Except for a ship lift, the dam project was completed and fully functional as of July 4, 2012,[5][6] when the last of the m -
Panama Canal
The 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,