AP Environmental Science Timeline

Agricultural Revolution

8,000 BCE

Industrial Revolution

1739

1820

1860

Yellowstone National Park Founded

1872

American Forestry Association Founded

1875

Yosemite and Sequoia

National Parks Founded

1890

Founded by John Muir, the Sierra Club is America's oldest and largest environmental organization. This club works towards green energy, preventing climate change, preserving public lands, and mitigating pollution.

The Lacey Act was passed by President McKinley. It prohibits the trade of wildlife, fish, and plants that are illegally obtained, possessed, transported or sold and also authorizes that the Secretary of the Interior may aid in restoring game and birds in the U.S. if they are on the verge of becoming extinct or rare.

1900

Golden Age of

Conservation

Under Theodore Roosevelt

1901-1909

The 1876 office of the Special Agent of the Department of Agriculture over time a through various alterations became the U.S. Forest Service in 1905. This was under President Theodore Roosevelt and Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot.

Congress banes further withdraws b/c President Theodore Roosevelt waves so much land

1907

U.S. National Park Service

Founded

1912

Dust Bowl

1930's

Hugh Hammond Bennett, a soil conservation pioneer, spearheaded the founding on this agency of the Department of Agriculture. It was renamed as the National Resources Conservation Service under President Clinton to compromise its broader mission to protect, improve, and conserve natural resources on private land.

1940

The book Silent Spring brought environmental concerns to the public eye and eventually led to a nation wide ban on the pesticide DDT and the creation of the U.S. Environment Protection Agency. Carson's book centered on how pesticide us negatively affects the environment, and in particular, on birds.

First Earth Day

1970

Environmental Protection

Agency established

1970

This act was enacted in 1976 and it is the principal federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste

It is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Passed in 1972, the objective of the CWA is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters.

1980

Nuclear Disaster in Japan

2010

World population hits 7 billion

2012

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?

IT'S UP TO US TO DECIDE!

AP Environmental Science Timeline

By Alexa Schaefer and Alex Luczkow

OPEC and Oil Embargo

1973

An oil crisis in October 1973 that began when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (consisting of the Arab members of OPEC, plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia) proclaimed an oil embargo. By the end of the embargo in March 1974, the price of oil had risen from $3 per barrel to nearly $12.

NEPA (National Environmental

Policy Act)

1969

Civilian Conservation Corps Founded

1933

FIFRA – Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Control Act

1973

This New Deal public relief program operated between 1933 and 1942 gave manual labor jobs to unemployed, unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 25. These jobs centered around the development and conservation of natural resources in rural areas that were owned by the government.

A United States environmental law that established a U.S. national policy promoting the enhancement of the environment and also established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). As one of the most emulated statutes in the world, NEPA has been called the modern-day equivalent of an “environmental Magna Carta”

A United States federal law that set up the basic U.S. system of pesticide regulation to protect applicators, consumers, and the environment.

Antiquities Act

1906

Lacey Act

1900

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

1854

Soil Conservation Service Founded

1933

Fish and Wildlife Service Founded

1940

First National Wildlife Refuge Established

1903

IPCC Report on Climate Change

2007-2008

Wilderness Act

1963

Endangered Species Act

1973

Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, caught fire

1969

RFCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act)

1976

Kyoto Protocol

1997-2005

Energy Policy Act of 1992

1992

Montreal Protocol

1987

Bhopal, India (chemical toxic cloud)

1984

Love Canal, NY (toxic waste leaks into residential houses)

1978

Alaskan Lands Act

1980

President Theodore Roosevelt passed this act to give the President authority through executive order to redistrict the use of public land that is owned by the federal government.

American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau documented two years, two months, and two days of living in the wilderness of Concord, Massachusetts through Walden. His reflections promoted self-sufficiency and simple living.

The Fish and Wildlife Service works to manage fish, wildlife, and their natural habitats. This expanded from The United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, which studied and recommended solutions to the declining fish populations.

In the Indian River Lagoon east of Sebastian, Florida lies the three acre island of Pelican Island. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt established it as The United States' first National Wildlife Refuge to protect the local birds from hunters.

Howard Zahniser wrote the Wilderness Act to properly define what a wilderness is and effectively led to the protection of 9.1 million acres of federal land. This Act also led to the creation of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

An act passed by Richard Nixon that was designed to protect at risk species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation."

On June 22, 1969, a river fire caught the attention of Time magazine, which described the Cuyahoga as the river that "oozes rather than flows" and in which a person "does not drown but decays." The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire helped spur a number of water pollution control activities, such as the Clean Water Act.

A neighborhood near Niagara Falls that became the subject of national and international attention after it was revealed in the press that the site had formerly been used to bury 21,000 tons of toxic waste by Hooker Chemical Company

A federal law passed under Jimmy Carter that provided for 43,585,000 acres of new national parklands in Alaska, the addition of 53,720,000 acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System, twenty-five wild and scenic rivers, and many other parts of Alaskan nature.

The city attracted international attention in December 1984 after the Bhopal disaster, when a Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide manufacturing plant leaked a mixture of deadly gases, leading to one of the worst industrial disasters in the world's history.

A United States government act that set goals, created mandates, and amended utility laws to increase clean energy use and improve overall energy efficiency in the United States.

An international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. As a result of the international agreement, the ozone hole in Antarctica is slowly recovering.

An international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which commits its Parties by setting internationally binding emission reduction targets.

This report is the largest and most detailed summary of the climate change situation ever undertaken, produced by thousands of authors, editors, and reviewers from dozens of countries, citing over 6,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies. The main findings of the report were: "warming of the climate system is unequivocal", and "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."

1740

2000

1780

Wild and Scenic Rivers Act

1968

Rachel Carson Publishes Silent Spring

1962

Chernobyl

1986

Taylor Grazing Act

1934

Exxon Valdez

1989

Clean Water Act

1977

Roland and Molina (UCI)- CFC’s and ozone management

1974

John Muir

1838

Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident

1979

Sierra Club Founded

1892

U.S. Forest Service founded

1905

This Act was signed in order to protect and preserve rivers of outstanding natural, cultural, and recreational value. 156 rivers are protected through this.

Homestead Act

1862

Gulf Oil Spill

2009

This federal law regulates the use of public lands as grazing land. Initially, this act placed 80,000,000 acres of public lands into grazing districts.

Desert Protection Act

1994

World population hits 6 billion

1999

An oil spill that occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters. Prince William Sound's remote location, accessible only by helicopter, plane, or boat, made government and industry response efforts difficult and severely taxed existing plans for response.

Scottish-American conversationalist and author John Muir was a renowned advocate for the preservation of the United States' wilderness. He founded the Sierra Club, a national conservation organization, as well as worked to preserve Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park.

A catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, which was under the direct authority of the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe.

In 1974 Frank Sherwood Rowland, Chemistry Professor at the University of California at Irvine, and his postdoctoral associate Mario J. Molina concluded that, like N2O, the CFCs would reach the stratosphere where they would be dissociated by UV light, releasing chlorine atoms

President Abraham Lincoln passed this Act to promote settlement into America's western frontier. This Act provided settlers 160 acres of land in exchange for a low fee and living on the provided land for five years.

It was a partial nuclear meltdown that occurred on March 28, 1979 in one of the two Three Mile Island nuclear reactors in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. It was the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history.

A federal law passed under President Bill Clinton that established the Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve in the California desert.

Caused by the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, this oil spill is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. Due to the months-long spill, along with adverse effects from the response and cleanup activities, extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats and fishing and tourism industries were reported.

Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act

1934

Clean Air Act established

1970

CERCLA- Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act [Super-Fund]

1986

Aldo Leopold

1905

Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act

1977

Commonly known as the Federal Duck Stamp, this adhesive stamp is required by the U.S. government for hunting migratory waterfowl, such as ducks and geese. 98% of the stamps sales goes to the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund.

A United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. It requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and enforce regulations to protect the public from airborne contaminants known to be hazardous to human health.

A United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances as well as broadly define "pollutants or contaminants."

American author, scientist, ecologist, and forester Aldo Leopold is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac as well as for his contributions to the movement for wildlife conservation. He was also the founder for the science of wildlife management.

It is the primary federal law that regulates the environmental effects of coal mining in the United States. It created two programs: one for regulating active coal mines and a second for reclaiming abandoned mine lands.

Audubon Society founded

1905

The National Aududon Society is an American, nonprofit, environmental organization. George Bird Grinnell founded the organization and based it primarily on bird conservation.

Gifford Pinchot

1905

American forester and politician Gifford Pinchot served as the first Chief Forester of The Nationals Forest Service from 1905 to 1910. He is known for his reforms concerning the management and developing of forests, as well for advocating for of the nation's reserves.