The Environmental Timeline: 1990-2007

Image: istockphoto.com/Loke Yek Mang

(Apr 22, 2008) Earth Day is a time to reflect, celebrate and plan our next enviro-action.

1990

UN Climate Change reports global temperature rise may rise as much as 2 degrees.

Gallup poll finds 76 % Americans call themselves "environmentalists."

London Protocols calls for a total global phase out of CFCs, halon and carbon tetrachloride.

War in Kuwait and Iraq creates environmental disaster with oil spills.

1991

Bangladesh cyclones: 138,000 died.

Mount Pinatubo volcano erupts in Philippines: 300 died.

USA government starts using recycled products and launches program for energy-efficient lighting.

1992

Hurricane Andrew in Florida and Louisiana: 26 dead.

EPA launches the Energy Star® Program for energy efficient products.

On June 3-14, Earth Summit is held in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

The Supertanker Braer spills 26 million gallons of crude oil in the Hebrides islands.

1993

A cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s drinking water sickens 400,000 people and kills more than 100.

The Nigerian military kills thousands of people who attended a demonstration against Shell Oil.

Environmental movement starts in South Korea.

Clinton signs order restricting logging in old growth forests.

1994

Paez river disaster in Colombia: 1,100 dead.

Basel Convention is signed banning the international shipments of hazardous waste from the industrial world to developing nations.

Study shows that US blood-lead levels declined by 78 percent from 1978 to 1991 during leaded gasoline phase-out.

Another Climate Change report from the United Nations.

Ugandan journalist Ndyakira Amooti uncovers trafficking of endangered species.

1995

Earthquake in Kobe, Japan: 6,433 dead.

Heavy floods in North Korea triggers food shortages.

Sichuan and Qinghai provinces in China experience low temperatures: 200,000 people afffected.

Heat wave in Chicago Illinois kills 739.

EPA launches an incentive-based acid rain program to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions.

The World Meteorological Organization reports that the hole in the Earth's ozone layer was expanding at a record rate.

Occidental Chemical Corp. agrees to pay $129 million to the federal government "superfund" to cover toxic waste cleanup costs at Love Canal.

1996

Earthquake in Yunnan, China.

Tornado and cyclone in India.

Flooding in Central United States. Hurricane Cesar damages Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

A major spill of wastes from the copper mine kills two major rivers on Marinduque Island, Philippines.

Lead poisoning is linked to anti-social behavior

1997

Japan has two large oil spills accidents, one in the Sea of Japan, the other in Tokyo Bay.

Hurricane Mitch, in Central America: 18,000 dead

Yangtze River in China: 3,000 dead and left 14 million homeless.

Pehuenche Indians occupy Chile's Indigenous Affairs Bureau and Environmental Protection Board to protest the licensing of the Ralco Dam on Chile's Bio-Bio River.

Jacques Cousteau, oceanographer, explorer and environmental activist, dies.

Julia Butterfly Hill climbs her 180 foot California Coast Redwood tree while the Kyoto Protocol adopted by 121 other nations, but not ratified by U.S. Congress.

1998

Ice storm of 1998 strikes from Eastern Ontario to southern Quebec to Nova Scotia and bordering areas from Northern New York to Southeast Maine in the United States.

Nearly 3,000 tons of Taiwanese toxic waste are dumped in a field in the southern port of Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Hottest year on record.

1999

Galtur Avalanche, Austria. Izmit Earthquake Turkey: 17,000 dead.

Chi-Chi earthquake, Taiwan: 2,415 dead or missing.

Orissa cyclone India: 10,000 died.

Vargas State Mudslides, Venezuela: 50,000 dead or missing.

Torrential downpours in Vietnam, S. Korea, China, Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand: 950 dead and millions homeless.

Mudslides and floods in southwest Mexico (360 dead) and in northern Venezuela: 5,000 to 20,000 people dead or missing.

2000

Aurul goldmine dam near Baia Mare, Romania overflows releasing cyanide-laced slurry into the Danube River.

Earth Day turns 30.

Rain forest logging banned in New Zealand following a 30 year campaign.

Over 300 million gallons of thick, black coal slurry sludge is released when Massey Energy Co. dam collapses near Inez (Martin County), Kentucky into the Big Sandy River’s Tug Fork and its tributaries, killing over 100 miles of streams.

2001

Gujarat Earthquake India: 30,000 dead.

The George W. Bush energy plan emphasizes oil exploration and new construction of coal and nuclear power plants.

G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy sees massive protests over the lack of environmental and labor standards.

Protests in China continue concerning the Three Gorges Dam

UN publishes "Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises.

2002

Karmadon Gorge Avalanche, North Ossetia, Russia: 150 dead.

Monsoons causing record floods in China, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh: more than 2,000 dead.

Flooding across central and Eastern Europe: 108 people.

Satellite images finds that Mexico lost almost 3 million acres of forest and jungle each year between 1993 and 2000.

The German government announced plans for a massive increase in wind generation capacity over the next 25 years.

Monsanto Chemical is charged with polluting Anniston, with tons of toxic PCBs.

World Summit on Sustainable Development (also known as Rio + 10), gathers in Johannesburg, South Africa.

2003

European Heat Wave: 14,802 dead

Bam Earthquake, Iran: 41,000 dead.

Bush Administration compiles the most anti-environmental record of any US president in history.

US Congress introduces energy bill that includes ethanol mandates, nuclear power plant construction, liability exemptions for MTBE users, electrical reliability measures and other items.

Electric power failure affects 50 million people from New York to Ontario.

2004

Hurricane Ivan in the Caribbean Sea & Southeastern United States: 25 deaths

Hurricane Jeanne in the Greater Antilles, Eastern United States: 3,000.

Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand: 250,000 killed, 42,883 missing.

Torrential rains flood Dominican Republic and Haiti: 2,000 dead.

Annual monsoons causes mudslides in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh: 5 million homeless and more than 1,800 dead.

Kenyan environmentalist and human rights campaigner Wangari Maathai becomes the first African women to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

2005

Sumatran earthquake, Indonesia: 1,000 killed

Maharashtra floods in Western India (July 2005)

Hurricane Katrina, United States: 2,000 killed

Hurricane Stan, Mexico, Central America, Guatemala: 669 deaths, 470,000 affected

Kashmir earthquake, Pakistan: 100,000 killed

Hurricane Wilma, Caribbean Sea, Mexico, United States

An explosion in a Jilin Petrochemical Co. refinery releases 100 tons of toxic into the Songhua River.

Kyoto Protocol officially goes into force Feb. 16 -- without the U.S.

Bob Hunter, one of the founders of Greenpeace, dies.

2005 is the hottest year in over a century

2006

Guinsaugon Landslide, Philippines: 1,000 people.

Heavy rainfalls in Northeast U.S 16 dead. Flooding in Ethiopia: 950 killed

Java earthquake, Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia: 6,750 killed

Typhoon Saomai, China: 450 killed

Typhoon Durian Philippines Vietnam: 801 died

Hengchun earthquake in Taiwan: 3000 affected

Solomon Islands earthquake, Gizo, Solomon Islands: 50 dead, 40,000 homeless

2007

Dubbed the weird weather year.

In August, Lewis Pugh, a British adventurer, swam one kilometer in ice-free waters of the North Pole.

Malaysia the worst flooding in decades, 110,000 people evacuated while Bangladesh had the coldest temperatures recorded in over 40 years and most of Canada is without snow.

China has the heaviest snowfall in 56 years while Nome Alaska begins its longest frost free duration that lasts until September.

In India, 25 million people are hit with the worst South-West Summer Monsoon flooding in years and Buenos Aires, Argentina experiences it’s first snowfall since 1918.

55 pecent of the US West and 78 percent Southeast remain a tinder-box dry due to am exceptional drough. Overall 35 percent of the the contiguous U.S. were in moderate to exceptional drought.

A record number of hybrid cars and chemical-free cleaning products hit the market.

Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change win the Nobel Peace Prize.

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1 Comment

posted May 5, 2008 - 3:27 pm by Kendra Mikulec

Thank you. As daunting it is to see it in writing; I think more people need to come to the realization of what we have done, what we are doing, and what we need to do now to turn it around. I still cannot believe there are other human beings living alongside the rest of us saying there is "nothing wrong with the environment." What reality do they live in?

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