Timeline of history of environmentalism

This timeline is a listing of events that have shaped humanity's perspective on the environment. This timeline includes human induced disasters, environmentalists that have had a positive influence, and environmental legislation.

For a list of geological and climatological events that have shaped human history see Timeline of environmental history

7th century

9th–13th centuries

14th century

15th century

  • 1466 — The city of Paris forces butchers to dispose of animal wastes outside the city (Ponting)
  • 1488 — The English Parliament passes an act forbidding the throwing of filth and garbage into ditches, rivers and waters. The city of Cambridge also passes the first urban sanitary laws in England.

16th century

  • 1520 to 1527, Madeira islands : destruction of the laurisilva forest, or the woods which once clothed the whole island when the Portuguese settlers decided to clear the land for farming by setting most of the island on fire.[7] It is said that the fire burned for seven years.

17th century

  • 1609 — Hugo Grotius publishes Mare Liberum (The Free Sea) with arguments for the new principle that the sea was international territory free to use it for seafaring trade. The ensuing debate had the British empire and France claim sovereignty over territorial waters to the distance within which cannon range could effectively protect it, the three mile (5 km) limit.
  • 1640 — Isaac Walton writes The Compleat Angler about fishing and conservation.
  • 1690 — Colonial Governor William Penn requires Pennsylvania settlers to preserve 1-acre (4,000 m2) of trees for every five acres cleared.
— The last Mauritius dodo dies. The extinction was due to hunting, but also by the pigs, rats, dogs and cats brought to the island by settlers. Later the species has become an icon of animal extinction.[8]

18th century

  • 1711 — Jonathan Swift notes the contents of London's gutters: "sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts and blood, drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud..."
  • 1720 — In India, hundreds of Bishnois Hindus of Khejarli go to their deaths trying to protect trees from the Maharaja of Jodhpur, who needed wood to fuel the lime kilns for cement to build his palace. This event has been considered as the origins of the 20th century Chipko movement.
  • 1739 — Benjamin Franklin and neighbors petition Pennsylvania Assembly to stop waste dumping and remove tanneries from Philadelphia's commercial district. Foul smell, lower property values, disease and interference with fire fighting are cited. The industries complain that their rights are being violated, but Franklin argues for "public rights." Franklin and the environmentalists win a symbolic battle but the dumping goes on.
  • 1748 — Jared Eliot, clergyman and physician, writes Essays on Field Husbandry in New England promoting soil conservation.
  • 1762 to 1769 — Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.
  • 1773 — William Bartram, (1739–1823). American naturalist sets out on a five-year journey through the US Southeast to describe wildlife and wilderness from Florida to the Mississippi. His book, Travels, is published in 1791 and becomes one of the early literary classics of the new United States of America.
  • 1798 – Thomas Robert Malthus publishes An Essay on the Principle of Population, an evolutionary social theory of population dynamics as it had acted steadily throughout all previous history.

19th century

  • 1820 — World human population reached 1 billion.[9]
  • 1828 — Carl Sprengel formulates the Law of the Minimum stating that economic growth is limited not by the total of resources available, but by the scarcest resource.
  • 1836 — Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes Nature.
  • 1845 — First use of the term "carrying capacity" in a report by the US Secretary of State to the Senate.
  • 1848 — Henry David Thoreau publishes Civil Disobedience.
  • 1849 — Establishment of the U.S. Department of Interior.
  • 1851 — Henry David Thoreau delivers an address to the Concord (Massachusetts) Lyceum declaring that "in Wildness is the preservation of the World." In 1863, this address is published posthumously as the essay "Walking" in Thoreau's Excursions.
  • 1854 — Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden; or, Life in the Woods.
  • 1859 — Publication of second edition of William Elliott's Carolina Sports by Land and Water (first published in 1846), an early example of the hunter-as-conservationist, a phenomenon which became increasingly important for conservationism.
  • 1860 — Henry David Thoreau delivers an address to the Middlesex (Massachusetts) Agricultural Society, entitled "The Succession of Forest Trees," in which he analyzes aspects of what later came to be understood as forest ecology and urges farmers to plant trees in natural patterns of succession; the address is later published in (among other places) Excursions, becoming perhaps his most influential ecological contribution to conservationist thought.
  • 1862 — John Ruskin publishes Unto This Last, which contains a proto-environmental indictment of the effects of unrestricted industrial expansion on both human beings and the natural world. The book influences Mahatma Gandhi, William Morris[10] and Patrick Geddes.[11]
  • 1864 — George Perkins Marsh publishes Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (revised 1874 as The Earth as Modified by Human Action), the first systematic analysis of humanity's destructive impact on the natural environment and a work which becomes (in Lewis Mumford's words) "the fountain-head of the conservation movement."
  • 1865 — William Stanley Jevons publishes The Coal Question raising concerns about the sustainability of coal energy.
  • 1866 — The term ecology is coined in German as Oekologie by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834–1919) in his Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Haeckel was an anatomist, zoologist, and field naturalist appointed professor of zoology at the Zoological Institute, Jena, in 1865. Haeckel was philosophically an enthusiastic Darwinian. Ecology is from the Greek oikos, meaning house or dwelling, and logos meaning discourse or the study of.
— The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is founded.
— World's first national park, Yellowstone National Park.
Arbor Day was founded by J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska City, Nebraska. It occurs every year on the last Friday in April in the US.
— German graduate student Othmar Zeidler first synthesises DDT, later to be used as an insecticide.
General Revision Act.

20th century

— 7300 hectares of land in the Lake District of the Andes foothills in Patagonia are donated by Francisco Moreno as the first park, Nahuel Huapi National Park, in what eventually becomes the National Park System of Argentina.
Tsunesaburo Makiguchi published Jinsei chirigaku (The Geography of Human Life[15]) in October 1903
  • 1905 — The term smog is coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux in a London meeting to express concern over air pollution.
— The National Audubon Society is founded.
  • 1906 — Antiquities Act, passed by US Congress which authorized the president to set aside national monument sites.
San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires destroy much of the city.
— The National Conservation Commission, appointed in June by President Roosevelt.
— An article by Robert Underwood Johnson in Century magazine, "A High Price to Pay for Water," helps bring the Hetch Hetchy controversy to national attention.
  • 1909 — US President Theodore Roosevelt convenes the North American Conservation Conference, held in Washington, D.C. and attended by representatives of Canada, Newfoundland, Mexico, and the United States.

1910s

  • 1910 — Gifford Pinchot publishes The Fight For Conservation.
  • 1913 — US Congress enacts law which destroyed the Hetch Hetchy Valley.
  • 1916 — US Congress created the National Park Service.
  • 1918 — The Save the Redwoods League is founded to protect the remaining coast redwood trees. Over 60% of the redwoods in California's state redwood parks have been protected by the organization.
Scientific American reports alcohol-gasoline anti-knock blend is "universally" expected to be the fuel of the future. Seven years later, in Public Health Service hearings, General Motors and Standard Oil spokesmen will claim that there are no alternatives to leaded gasoline as an anti-knock additive.
— Congress approves the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which implements a 1916 Convention (between the U.S. and Britain, acting for Canada) for the Protection of Migratory birds, and establishes responsibility for international migratory bird protection.
Spanish flu kills between 50 to 100 million people worldwide

1920s

1930s

  • 1930–1940 — The Dust Bowl, widespread land degradation due to drought in the North American prairie.
  • 1930 — World human population reached 2 billion.[9]
  • 1933 — Legislation on Animal rights adopted, Germany.[17]
— Publication of Game Management by Aldo Leopold.
The Wilderness Society is founded.

1940s

Defenders of Wildlife founded.
  • 1948 — World Conservation Union or International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) is an international organization dedicated to natural resource conservation. Founded in 1948, its headquarters is located in Gland, Switzerland.
— Fairfield Osborn publishes Our Plundered Planet.
— William Vogt publishes Road to Survival.
Aldo Leopold publishes A Sand County Almanac

1950s

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) established by the United Nations.
Drinking water fluoridation becomes an official policy of the U.S. Public Health Service to reduce tooth decay, soon followed by other countries.
Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act
— Harrison Brown publishes The Challenge of Man's Future.
Fish and Wildlife Act.

1960s

  • 1960 — World human population reached 3 billion.[9]
— Mobilisation in France to preserve the Vanoise National Park in the Alpes (Val d'Isère, Tignes, etc.) from an important touristic project. The park itself was created three years later, in 1963, and was the first French natural park.
Wallace Stegner writes the Wilderness Letter, credited with helping lead to Wilderness Act.[18]
Federal Water Pollution Control Act
Murray Bookchin publishes Our Synthetic Environment
— The first White House Conservation Conference takes place.
Clean Air Act
Wilderness Act.
United States Postal Service releases John Muir stamp.
Northeast Blackout of 1965
Water Quality Act
Solid Waste Disposal Act
— Amendments to the Clean Air Act
Fur Seal Act.
National Historic Preservation Act
Air inversion in New York City
1966 Palomares B-52 crash
Ralph Nader publishes Unsafe at Any Speed
Torrey Canyon oil spill
— Amendments to the Clean Air Act.
Apollo 1 fire
National Trails System Act.
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
Paul R. Ehrlich publishes The Population Bomb.
Zero Population Growth founded.
UNESCO hosts the Paris Biosphere Conference, which would ultimately result in the creation of the Man and the Biosphere Programme
Club of Rome founded.
— Accidental pollution of the Rhine in Europe, by 500 liters of Endosulfan, a kind of insecticide. The river was contaminated on more than 600 km and more than 20 million fish died.[19]
— The Icelandic summer-spawning herring stock collapses as a result of a combination of high fishing pressure and deteriorating environmental conditions. From being a stock that was distributed over large areas in the North Atlantic, the stock was reduced to a small stock in Norwegian coastal waters. International efforts have later started to rebuild the stock.
— Category 5 Hurricane Camille caused damage and destruction across much of the Gulf Coast of the United States.
Friends of the Earth founded.
1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
Cuyahoga River Fire
Food and Drug Administration bans sodium cyclamate and places limits on the use of monosodium glutamate
René Dubos publishes So Human an Animal
— Ecologist Frank Fraser Darling invited to give the Reith Lectures.

1970s

  • 1970 — Earth Day – April 22., millions of people gather in the United States for the first Earth day organized by Gaylord Nelson, former senator of Wisconsin, and Denis Hayes, Harvard graduate student.
— US Environmental Protection Agency established.
Francis A. Schaeffer publishes Pollution and the Death of Man.
Arne Næss leads the non-violent civil disobedience protest against damming of the Mardalsfossen waterfall, later publishing on the deep ecology philosophy.
Center for Science in the Public Interest founded.
— Environmental Action founded.
League of Conservation Voters founded.
Natural Resources Defense Council founded.
Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold is reissued.
— Occupational Safety and Health Act
Public Interest Research Group founded.
  • 1971 — The international environmental organisation Greenpeace founded in Vancouver, Canada. Greenpeace has later developed national and regional offices in 41 countries worldwide.
International Institute for Environment and Development established in London, UK. One offshoot is the World Resources Institute with its biannual report World Resources since 1984.
— Nonprofit Keep America Beautiful launches the nationwide "Crying Indian" television public service advertisement, reaching nearly every American household.
Public Citizen founded.
Calvert Cliffs' Coordinating Committee, Inc. v. United States Atomic Energy Commission
  • 1972 — The Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm, Sweden 5 to 16 June, the first of a series of world environmental conferences.
United Nations Environment Programme founded as a result of the Stockholm conference.
— the Oslo Convention on dumping waste at sea, later merged with the Paris Convention on land-based sources of marine pollution into the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic.
— The Club of Rome publishes its report Limits to Growth, which has sold 30 million copies in more than 30 translations, making it the best selling environmental book in world history.
Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (also known as Ocean Dumping Act).
Noise Control Act.
Clean Water Act.
Coastal Zone Management Act.
The Blue Marble photograph
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) – major amendments
— (June 14) After seven months of hearings, the United States Environmental Protection Agency bans most uses of DDT.[20]
The Trust for Public Land founded.
Values Party founded.
A Blueprint for Survival published.
  • 1973 — OPEC announces oil embargo against United States.
— World Conservation Union (IUCN) meeting drafts the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
Endangered Species Preservation Act.
E. F. Schumacher publishes Small Is Beautiful.
Cousteau Society founded.
— National Reserves Management Act.
— World human population reached 4 billion.[9]
— State Natural Heritage Program Network launched in the US.
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act
— Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act.
Abalone Alliance founded.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founded.
New York City blackout of 1977
Ekofisk oil field spill.
— U.S. admits to neutron bomb testing.
  • 1978 — Brominated flame-retardants replaces PCBs as the major chemical flame retardant. Swedish scientists noticed these substances to be accumulating in human breast milk 1998. First ban on use in the EU 2004.
Love Canal contamination revealed.
Three Mile Island accident
Amoco Cadiz oil spill
Samuel Epstein publishes The Politics of Cancer
David Ehrenfeld publishes The Arrogance of Humanism
Offshore drilling begins off the coast of New Jersey
Three Mile Island, worst nuclear power accident in US history.
Hans Jonas publishes The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age.
Supersonic airliner Concorde is put in regular operation in spite of concern due to its sonic boom and the potential for its engine exhaust to damage the ozone layer. The last regular flight landed in 2003.
— Fifth largest oil spill ever when the S.S. Atlantic Empress collides with Aegean Captain off of Trinidad and Tobago

1980s

  • 1980 – Superfund (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act or CERCLA)
Earth First! founded
The Global 2000 Report to the President
International Union for Conservation of Nature publishes its World Conservation Strategy
William R. Catton, Jr. publishes Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
Low Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980
— United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is signed on December the 10th at Montego Bay. Part XII of which significantly developed port-state control of pollution from ships.
Bat Conservation International founded.
Co-op America founded.
Earth Island Institute founded.
Rocky Mountain Institute founded.
Sewergate
World Charter for Nature
Nuclear Waste Policy Act
— Evacuation of Times Beach, Missouri
Green Committees of Correspondence founded.
— North America Bioregional Congress founded.
Brundtland Commission appointed.
1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia
Worldwatch Institute publishes its first State of the World report.
— Chemical leak in Institute, West Virginia
Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior
Antarctic ozone hole discovered.
— FDA approved bovine somatotropin
  • 1986 — Chernobyl, world's worst nuclear power accident occurs at a plant in Ukraine.
Emergency Wetlands Resources Act.
Tetraethyllead phase-out was completed in the US.
Northern Rivers Rerouting Project abandoned by the USSR government.
  • 1987 — World human population reached 5 billion.[9]
— The Report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future on sustainable development, is published.
Conservation International founded.
— First Debt-for-Nature Swap
— First meeting of the U.S. Greens
Montreal Protocol opened for signature.
National Appliance Energy Conservation Act
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by two United Nations organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to assess the "risk of human-induced climate change".
Student Environmental Action Coalition founded.
— Lawsuit brought by Environmental Defense Fund results in McDonald's agreeing to use biodegradable containers.
Alternative Motor Fuels Act
  • 1989 — Exxon Valdez creates largest oil spill in US history.
Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer entered into force on January 1. Since then, it has undergone five revisions, in 1990 (London), 1992 (Copenhagen), 1995 (Vienna), 1997 (Montreal), and 1999 (Beijing).
— influenced by protests by Kirishi residents, the USSR Supreme Soviet decides to close down the country's eight paraffin-fed single-cell protein plants.[21]

1990s

European Environment Agency was established by EEC Regulation 1210/1990 and became operational in 1994. It is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark.
— The IPCC first assessment report was completed, and served as the basis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Clean Air Act – major amendment
Redwood Summer
Dolphin safe label introduced.
Leave No Trace education program developed by the United States Forest Service in conjunction with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).
  • 1991 — The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty was signed 4 October. The agreement provides for the protection of the Antarctic environment through five specific annexes on marine pollution, fauna, and flora, environmental impact assessments, waste management, and protected areas. It prohibits all activities relating to mineral resources except scientific.
— World's worst oil spill occurs in Kuwait during war with Iraq.
Kuwaiti oil fires
Global Environment Facility (GEF) was established by donor governments.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change opened for signature on 9 May ahead of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
— The international Convention on Biological Diversity opened for signature on 5 June in connection with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
World Oceans Day began on 8 June at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
— The Canadian government closes all eastern seaboard fishing grounds due to insufficient recovery of the stock.
— Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency established.
— The metaphor Ecological footprint is coined by William Rees.
— The first genetically modified food crop released to the market. It remains a strongly controversial environmental issue.
Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics is established.
  • 1995 — Scotland's Environmental Protection Agency is established.
  • 1996 — Western Shield, a wildlife conservation project is started in Western Australia, and through successful work has taken several species off of the state, national, and international (IUCN) Endangered Species Lists..
  • 1997 — July, U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which stated that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations.
— The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December. It is actually an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Countries that ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases.
  • 1999 — World human population reached 6 billion.[9]

21st century

— The IPCC release the IPCC Third Assessment Report.
European Heat Wave resulting in the premature deaths of at least 35,000 people.
— FBI initiates Operation Backfire – an anti-terrorist law enforcement operation against "Eco-Radicals."
  • 2005 — Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma cause widespread destruction and environmental harm to coastal communities in the US Gulf Coast region.
— The Kyoto Protocol came into force on February 16 following ratification by Russia on November 18, 2004.
— The BBC's "Climate Chaos" season includes Are We Changing Planet Earth?, a two-part investigation into global warming by David Attenborough.
— The Stern Review is published. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, says that it shows that scientific evidence of global warming was "overwhelming" and its consequences "disastrous".
— World human population reached 6.5 billion[22]
— Power Shift 2007 – the first National Youth Climate Conference, held in College Park, MD and Washington, D.C. November 2–5, 2007. Power Shift 2007: The Energy Action Coalition saw over 5,000 youth converge in Washington, D.C. to build their movement, lobby congress, and make a statement about the way youth feel about Global Warming.
  • 2009 — Power Shift 2009 – The Energy Action Coalition hosted the second national youth climate conference to be held at the Washington Convention Center from February 27 to March 2, 2009. The conference aims to attract more than 10,000 students and young people and will include a Lobby Day.
  • 2010 – Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.
  • 2011 — United Nations designates day that world human population reached 7 billion.
  • 2014 — The IPCC release the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.
  • 2015 - The Paris Agreement is signed
  • 2019 - Earth Day and National Cleanup Day organize the first coordinated cleanup event held in all 50 States and US Territories

See also

References

  1. Aboul-Enein, H. Yousuf; Zuhur, Sherifa (2004), Islamic Rulings on Warfare, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Diane Publishing Co., Darby PA, p. 22, ISBN 9781584871774
  2. Gari, L. (November 2002), "Arabic Treatises on Environmental Pollution up to the End of the Thirteenth Century", Environment and History, 8 (4): 475–488, doi:10.3197/096734002129342747
  3. Scott, S. P. (1904), History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, OCLC 580060576
  4. Artz, F. B. (1980), The Mind of the Middle Ages (Third ed.), University of Chicago Press, pp. 148–150, OCLC 390600
  5. David Urbinato (Summer 1994). "London's Historic 'Pea-Soupers'". United States Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved 2006-08-02.
  6. "Deadly Smog". PBS. 2003-01-17. Retrieved 2006-08-02.
  7. "Nature Reserves, lva Forest and Ecological Parks of Madeira". Madeira Live. Retrieved 2009-07-16. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. Recently Extinct Animals – Species Info – Dodo Archived 2007-05-14 at the Wayback Machine
  9. "United Nations Population Fund moves Day of 6 Billion based on new population estimates". Population Connection. 1998-10-28. Archived from the original on 2006-02-20. Retrieved 2006-03-11.
  10. Coates, Peter. Nature: Western Attitudes Since Ancient Times. Polity Press, 1998. (Pg. 163).
  11. Boardman, Philip. The Worlds of Patrick Geddes. Routledge, 1978 (pg. 33).
  12. Andrei, Mary Anne (September 2005). "The accidental conservationist: William T. Hornaday, the Smithsonian bison expeditions and the US National Zoo". Endeavour. 29 (3): 109–113. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2005.05.002. PMID 16038976.
  13. http://www.physorg.com/pdf83678030.pdf
  14. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Arrhenius/
  15. "As a Geographer |Tsunesaburo Makiguchi Website". www.tmakiguchi.org. Retrieved 2019-03-17.
  16. http://www.worldbank.org/transport/publicat/b09.pdf
  17. Nazi Germany and Animal Rights
  18. stegner100.com Stegner Centennial Utah Web site. Retrieved 2-24-09.
  19. "Environmental movement" article in the French Encyclopedia Universalis
  20. DDT Regulatory History: A Brief Survey (to 1975), U.S. EPA, July 1975.
  21. KIRISHI: A GREEN SUCCESS STORY? Archived 2009-08-07 at the Wayback Machine (Johnson's Russia List, Dec. 19, 2002). Original source: Olga Tsepilova, "V malom industrial'nom gorode Rossii" [In a Small Industrial City in Russia], Pro et Contra, Vol. 7, No. 1, Winter 2002, pp. 68–83.
  22. David, Leonard (2006-02-25). "World population hits 6.5 billion". NBC News. Retrieved 2007-04-19.

Further reading

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