Image: istockphoto.com/Loke Yek Mang
(Apr 22, 2008) In celebration of Canadian Environmental Week, here is a timeline of the progress made.
1970
The first Earth Day is held.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is started.
The Clean Air Act is passed and DDT is banned.
1971
Sept 15, The Phyllis Cormack sets out from Vancouver to protest US nuclear testing on the Aleutian Island of Amchitka. A few months later, Greenpeace is founded in Victoria, B.C.
1972
Life magazine publishes W. Eugene Smith’s photographic essay on the mercury pollution in
Minemata, Japan. The images become icons of the environmental movement.
USA and Canada agree to clean up the Great Lakes.
1973
Phase out of leaded gasoline begins.
A group of Himalayan villagers attach themselves to trees to stop the loggers and the Chipko Movement is born (chipko means “tree-hugger” in Hindi).
US Congress passes the Endangered Species Act but also approves the Alaskan pipeline.
An OPEC oil embargo triggers an energy crisis.
1974
US Congress passes the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Karen Silkwood dies in a suspicious car accident on her way to hand a New York Times journalist information on the nuclear weapons facility in Crescent, Oklahoma.
Mario J. Molina (Mexico), Paul J. Crutzen (Holland) and F. Sherwood Rowland (USA) describe the effects chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have on the ozone.
1975
The Phyllis Cormack, renamed Greenpeace V, heads out of Vancouver's English Bay to start The Great Whale Conspiracy and stop whale hunting.
The catalytic converter for cars is introduced after US Congress sets tail-pipe emission standards for cars.
1976
Francisco Chico Mendez organizes the First Empate (standoff) in Brazil's Amazon region, getting rubber tappers to form a human chain around the forest.
A chemical explosion in Seveso, Italy releases dioxin into the atmosphere.
The Liberian tanker Argo Merchant crashes 27 miles off Nantucket Island leaking 9 million gallons of oil.
The EPA begins phase-out of cancer causing PCB production.
1977
President Jimmy Carter signs the Clean Air Act.
Waangari Matthai starts the Kenya's Green by planting seven small saplings. By 1992 seven million saplings have been planted by her organization and in 2004 Matthai was awarded the Nobel Peace Price.
1978
A propylene gas explosion in Tarragona, Spain kills 140 people.
The Amoco Cadiz wrecks off the coast of France spilling over 1.3 million barrels and creating an oil slick covering 100 miles of coastline.
Lois Gibbs and her neighbors form the Love Canal Homeowners Association after discovering they were living on a toxic waste dump in Niagara Falls, New York.
1979
March 28, Three Mile Island partially melts down.
The IXTOC I oil well blows out in the Bay of Campeche, Mexico and becomes the largest oil spill in history.
Dave Foreman, Howie Wolke and Mike Roselle organize Earth First!
The EPA bans domestic use of 2,4,5 T, a herbicide used in Agent Orange.
1980
Seven hundred Love Canal families are relocated. US Congress creates the Superfund to clean up hazardous waste sites.
Dian Fossey publishes Gorillas in the Mist.
1981
National Research Council reports acid rain has increased in the Northeastern United States and Canada.
The Regan/Bush administration proposes abandoning the leaded gas phase out while lifting the ban on commercial reprocessing of nuclear fuel.
1982
The US Congress amends the Endangered Species Act to build a dam.
Citizens in Warren County, North Carolina block a PCB landfill being built and dangerous levels of dioxin are found in the small Missouri town Times Beach.
1983
Under the Reagan guidelines, the EPA stops all research on ozone depletion.
The British Antarctica Survey station at Halley Bay reveals increasing holes in ozone layer.
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is signed by 117 States.
Anti-environmental US Secretary of the Interior, James Watt and EPA Administrator Anne Goresuch resign after much public pressure.
1984
Union Carbide Co. fertilizer plant explodes in the Indian town of Bhopal, immediately killing 2000 people, another 8,000 die from chronic effects, there is an estimated 100,000 injuries and 50,000 people are partially or totally disabled.
1985
Mexico City is hit with the worst earthquake in North America: 9,000 dead, 30,000 injured, 100,000 left homeless
A giant hole in the ozone is discovered over Antartica and shows up on NASA satellite images. The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior is bombed in Auckland, New Zealand harbor killing activist photographer Fernando Pereiraman.
1986
The Chernobyl nuclear reactor explodes in Ukraine contaminating over 2,000 square miles. Thirty-one people die immediately, followed by 4,200 deaths and there is a 200-fold increase in thyroid cancer.
In Cameroon Africa a cloud of carbon dioxide gas boils out of Lake Nyos killing 1,700 people.
A chemical spill in Basel, Switzerland kills most of the fish in the Rhine River through Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Dian Fossey is murdered in her cabin in Karisoke, Rwanda. US Congress passes the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act. The Safe Drinking Water Act is amended to set standards for 83 contaminants and ban use of lead pipes.
1987
On Sept 16, 24 countries including the US, Japan, Canada and EEC nations sign the Montreal Protocol, pledging to phase-out production of CFCs.
Beaches in New York and New Jersey are closed after medical waste washes up on shore.
US Congress passes the Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act forbidding ocean dumping of plastic materials.
India approves Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river despite protests over the environmental costs of the dam project.
1988
Russia starts its ecology movement when scientists form the Ecology and Peace Association and Svet Zabelin forms the Socio-Ecological Union (SEU).
The Piper Alpha oil platform explodes in the North Sea just off Aberdeen, Scotland. NASA scientists warn Congress about consequences from global and the World Meteorological Organization and UN Environmental Program establish the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In Toronto, the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere calls for global CO2 emissions reductions of 20% by 2005.
An international treaty bans all ocean dumping of wastes.
Penan forest communities of Malaysia start protests and organize blockades to stop logging on the island of Borneo.
On Dec. 22 Chico Mendez, leader of Brazil's movement to save the rain forest is assassinated.
1989
The Exxon Valdez spills 11 million gallons of crude oil in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
The Amazon Declaration is signed by Brazil, Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, Suriname, Peru, Guyana and Venezuela.
US Congress votes to halt timbering in Alaska's Tsongass National Forest.
The new Hungarian government abandons the Nagymoros dam project on the Danube River.
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