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Learn about major environmental events over the past 50 years
Assign educational activities such as debates, creative writing tasks, art projects, or science experiments
Take action for Earth Day 2020!
The conference was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in early June — is the first of a series of the world environmental conferences.
Millions gather across the United States for the first Earth Day, organized by Gaylord Nelson, former senator of Wisconsin, and Denis Hayes, a Harvard graduate student.
The environmental group Environmental Action distributes a poster of the “Dirty Dozen” which depicts 12 members of the US Congress who supported corporate interests over environmental and human health. This tactic has been imitated many times over to encourage voters to oust politicians who do not protect the environment.
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/modern/jb_modern_earthday_1.html
http://www.environmentandsociety.org/tools/keywords/stockholm-declaration-1972-broadly-recognizes-global-environmental-issues
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_526704
World Conservation Union (IUCN) meeting drafts the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITIES).
The convention on Wetlands is signed in Ramsar, Iran. The international agreement to protect wetlands has 160 member-nations today and helps to protect nearly 2,000 wetland areas worldwide.
https://www.cites.org/eng/disc/text.php
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=15398&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
US scientist Wallace Broecker puts the term "global warming" into the public domain in the title of a scientific paper.
Three Mile Island accident, the most significant U.S. commercial nuclear disaster to date, occurs near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Through the Tbilisi Declaration, the world’s first intergovernmental conference on environmental education was organized by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in cooperation with the U.N. Environment Programme in Tbilisi, Georgia.
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/189/4201/460
https://www.gdrc.org/uem/ee/tbilisi.html
Brominated flame retardants replace PCBs as the major chemical flame retardant. Swedish scientists will notice these substances accumulating in human breast milk in 1998, with the first ban on use in the European Union in 2004.
A conservation ecology program in the western United States managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is established. The program was conceived in the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which established the first conservation ecology mandate for the BLM.
https://www.blm.gov/or/regulations/files/FLPMA.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115205/
US President Ronald Reagan says in his State of the Union Address, “Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it’s common sense.”
Environmental Justice activists protest polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) landfill in North Carolina, US. Here, Dr. Benjamin Chavis coins the term “environmental racism.”
https://www.epa.gov/history/quotations-about-environment
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/11/us/carolinians-angry-over-pcb-landfill.html
Union Carbicide Co. fertilizer plant in India leaks methyl ico-cyanide, resulting in more than 19,000 deaths. This is known as the Bhopal disaster.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142333/
Australia is hit by extreme weather phenomena and devastation, including one of the deadliest bushfires to date.
https://www.ffm.vic.gov.au/history-and-incidents/ash-wednesday-1983
Antarctic ozone hole is discovered.
World population reaches 5 billion.
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer enters into force on January 1, 1989. The international treaty phased out the many substances responsible for ozone depletion. Since 1987, the protocol has undergone five revisions in 1990 (London), 1992 (Copenhagen), 1995 (Vienna), 1997 (Montreal), and 1999 (Beijing).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631071318301196
https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/population/index.html
https://www.state.gov/key-topics-office-of-environmental-quality-and-transboundary-issues/the-montreal-protocol-on-substances-that-deplete-the-ozone-layer/
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is established by two U.N. organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme to assess the “risk of human-induced climate change.
The Chernobyl disaster, the world’s worst nuclear power accident, occurs at a plant in the Ukraine.
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/03/the-chernobyl-disaster-25-years-ago/100033/
https://www.ipcc.ch/about/
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) enters into force.
Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage.
The Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro, results in the adoption of The United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change,
the U.N. Convention on Biological
Diversity, and the U.N. Convention
to Combat Desertification.
https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-convention/what-is-the-united-nations-framework-convention-on-climate-change
https://www.earthday.org/history/
https://www.un.org/esa/earthsummit/
The Air Quality Agreement, an environmental treaty between Canada and the United States, was signed by Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and American President George H. W. Bush.
Ice cores from Greenland show that past climate changes have occurred in as little as 10 years. The finding debunked previous hypotheses that climate changes only happened on very slow, long time frames.
https://www.nature.com/articles/364218a0
https://www.ijc.org/en/mission/air-quality-agreement
The GEO-2000 is published.
It is part of the Global Environment Outlook project.
IPCC Second Assessment Report concludes that the balance of evidence suggests "a discernible human influence" on the Earth's climate.
Kyoto Protocol is adopted. Developed nations pledge to reduce emissions by an average of 5% by the period 2008-12, with wide variations on targets for individual countries. US Senate immediately declares it will not ratify the treaty.
https://www.nsf.gov/geo/adgeo/geo2000/geo_2000_full_report.jsp
https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/climate-changes-1995/ipcc-2nd-assessment/2nd-assessment-en.pdf
https://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol
Strong El Nino conditions combine with global warming to produce the warmest year on record.
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification entered into force.
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/eln/rcnt.rxml
https://www.unccd.int/convention/about-convention/status-ratification
The Plant Protection Act is introduced in the United States.
The 2004 Indian Ocean
earthquake and tsunami kills
nearly a quarter of a million
people.
Air and water pollution are still serious problems in many countries. This year’s Earth Day message is “Water for Life.”
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/weeds/downloads/PPAText.pdf
https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/a-23-a-2003-04-17-1-1-83117072/121678.html
https://www.britannica.com/event/Indian-Ocean-tsunami-of-2004
DDT (dicholorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is banned as a pesticide worldwide under the Stockholm Convention.
Wangari Maathai wins Nobel Peace Prize for her work planting trees around Kenya,
the first African woman to receive this distinction.
https://www.panna.org/resources/ddt-story
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2004/maathai/facts/
Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and
Wilma cause widespread
destruction and environmental
harm to coastal communities in
the U.S. Gulf Coast region.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded jointly to the IPCC and U.S. Vice President Al Gore "for their efforts to build up and disseminate
greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such
change."
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/outreach/history/
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2007/summary/
The European Union Emissions
Trading System is launched to
reduce greenhouse gas
emissions through a “cap and
trade” program.
The UNFCCC develops
an initiative called
REDD+ which focuses
on mitigation solutions
for reducing carbon
emissions for countries
experiencing rapid
deforestation.
https://climatepolicyinfohub.eu/eu-emissions-trading-system-introduction
https://redd.unfccc.int/
IPCC releases its Fifth Assessment Report on the state of the climate, its impacts and the global solutions for climate mitigation and adaptation.
Arctic sea ice reaches a minimum extent of 3.41 million sq km (1.32 million sq mi), a record for the lowest summer cover since satellite measurements began in 1979.
Earth Day 2010 came at a time of great challenge for the environmental community to combat the cynicism of climate change deniers.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2012/
https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar5/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/7618283/Earth-Day-2010-a-history-of-four-decades-of-environmental-campaigning.html
Sea winds bring massive air pollution from mainland China to Japan demonstrating that major national polluters are not the only ones who incur the damaging impacts.
Western black rhino goes extinct
due to poaching.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/82535/smog-shrouds-eastern-china
https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/rhinoceros/african_rhinos/black_rhinoceros/
U.S. President Donald Trump announces his intent to withdraw the United States — the world’s second-largest emitter — from the Paris Agreement.
At COP 21 on December 12,2015 195 countries adopt the Paris Agreement, the world’s first international agreement to keep total anthropogenic global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius.
16-year-old Greta Thunberg
strikes outside of Swedish
Parliament to protest political
inaction on climate change.
Thunberg’s strikes further the
growing youth climate
movement through the Fridays
for Future youth strikes
worldwide.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-trump-paris-climate-accord/
http://www.cop21paris.org/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/greta-thunberg-photo-viral-again_n_5d85f07ae4b070d468cd3bb7
The IPCC releases its Special Report on 1.5 Degrees of Global Warming, which warns that the world has just twelve years to halve its emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
The Paris Agreement is signed by 174 countries and the European Union in a ceremony at United Nations headquarters on Earth Day.
https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
At the end of 2020, nations will be expected to increase their national commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The time is now to take action to tackle our climate crisis!
The enormous challenges – but also the vast opportunities – of acting on climate change have distinguished this issue as the most pressing topic for the 50th anniversary year.
https://www.earthday.org/take-action-now/
Designed by Next Interactive Presentations:
www.nextinterativa.com/
2003: http://www.cagreens.org/alameda/city/gallery/earthday/0403earthday.html
2004: https://www.flickr.com/photos/isaacmao/765073/in/photolist-4VqV
2007: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2007/gore/facts/ and https://www.gaf.de/content/gaf-present-23rd-conference-parties-cop23
2010: http://archive.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/04/earth_day_2010.html
2011: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bfra07/4641824922
2012: https://robertscribbler.com/2012/10/03/2012s-realization-of-the-end-of-arctic-sea-ice-the-tale-of-our-northern-cryospheres-last-days-in-words-images-and-numbers/
2013: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/82535/smog-shrouds-eastern-china
2014: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/
2015: https://corporateeurope.org/en/environment/2015/11/lobby-planet-paris-guide-corporate-cop21
2016: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/04/parisagreementsingatures/
2017: https://www.kcrg.com/content/news/World-reacts-to-Trumps-decision-to-withdraw-US-from-climate-agreement-425851773.html
2018: https://www.unpri.org/news-and-press/the-ipcc-special-report-on-15c-key-takeaways-for-pri-signatories-/3818.article and https://www.eurotopics.net/en/211145/greta-thunberg-s-controversial-protest
1986: https://www.flickr.com/photos/iaea_imagebank/5613115146
1987: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fircaulibrary%2Fearth-day-resources%2F&psig=AOvVaw1cDe8u1GjR9bBC15V9XJZB&ust=1585680976940000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCKCPuo3wwugCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
1988: https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/state-of-climate-2018-shows-accelerating-climate-change-impacts
1989: https://www.unenvironment.org/ozonaction/who-we-are/about-montreal-protocol
1991: https://ijc.org/en/who/role
1992: http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/2014/04/achievements-of-earth-summit.html
1993: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/climate-skeptic2.htm
1994: https://www.flickr.com/photos/unfccc/9917212873
1995: https://data.globalchange.gov/report/ipcc-sar-wg1
1996: https://www.environmental-expert.com/companies/united-nations-convention-to-combat-desertification-unccd-30034
1997: https://www.wired.com/2009/12/1211kyoto-climate-accord/
1998: https://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/the-el-nino-of-19971998.html
1999: http://yabaha.net/dahl/earthw/geo2000.htm
2000: https://group17plantsandpeople.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/plant-protection-act-of-2000/
1970: https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2020-2-march-april/editor/how-earth-day-launched-my-environmentalist-career
1971: https://tourduvalat.org/en/fondation-tour-du-valat/history-and-values/
1972: https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/dunche/dunche.html
1973: https://www.cites.org/eng/disc/text.php#
1974: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_526704
1975: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/grandfather-climate-science-leaves-final-warning-earth-n978426
1976: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_of_Critical_Environmental_Concern
1977: https://www.iucn.org/content/tbilisi35-celebrates-environmental-education-milestone
1978: https://www.slideshare.net/agkline/flame-retardants-4-2414
1979: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nuclear-accident-at-three-mile-island
1982: https://timeline.com/warren-county-dumping-race-4d8fe8de06cb
1983: https://www.flickr.com/photos/57768042@N00/4400643804
1984: https://www.epa.gov/history/quotations-about-environment and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142333/
1985: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/Ozone