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minamata scandal
In Japan, a chemical company known as Minamata disposed of methyl mercury into waste water, which contaminated shellfish and fish as well as causing local people to become ill with mercury poisoning. Symptoms of this included, but was not limited to, high fever, convulsions, psychosis and could lead to a coma or death. After this event occured, people became more aware of ways in which industrialisation can negatively harm the environment, and the trust that people once had vanished. -
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
This raised awareness of the harms that pesticide has on organisms in the environment, especially to those that were higher up the food chain. -
Save the Whales Campaign Begins
In 1970, Greenpeace formed from the Sierra Club and launched its Anti-Whaling Campaign, which was created with the intention to confront Soviet whaling fleets in the East Pacific Ocean. This movement spread globally, and soon protests began in many countries to stop whaling. The social implications of this meant that many people, who had originally not cared about the effects of whaling, realised that there needed to be something done about the terrible practice. -
Clean air act
The Clean Air Act is the comprehensive federal law that regulates air emissions from stationary and mobile sources. Among other things, this law authorizes EPA to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards to protect public health and public welfare and to regulate emissions of dangerous air pollutants. -
NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act)
The National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to integrate environmental values into their decision making processes by considering the environmental impacts of their proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to those actions. -
First Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on April 22, on which day events worldwide are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. -
Bhopal
8000-10000 people died within 72 hours after an explosion at a Union Carbide plant that released 42 tonnes of methyl isocytane gas. -
Chernobyl Nuclear Meltdown
This created awareness of the dangerous power of nuclear energy, as steam blast effects caused by the meltdown led to two deaths in the facility and several injuries. -
UN Rio Earth Summit
This conference occured due to a need to focus on sustainable development, for the first time ever. It was attended by 172 nations, and the radical repurcussions where felt globaly. -
An Inconvenient Truth
After the release of the film, the issue of global warming became more prominent in society and many people began to change their attitudes towards the subject.
