114 Fun Facts About Environmental

On what date is Earth Day held every year?

Earth Day falls on April 22. The first one, on April 22, 1970, drew about 20 million Americans to teach-ins and rallies across the United States.

Which US senator proposed the nationwide environmental teach-in that became Earth Day?

Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson proposed the nationwide teach-in in 1969 and hired the young activist Denis Hayes as its national coordinator.

Who coined the name 'Earth Day'?

Advertising writer Julian Koenig coined 'Earth Day'; he liked it partly because April 22 was his birthday and 'birthday' rhymes with 'Earth Day'.

Which labour union was the most important outside backer of the first Earth Day?

The United Auto Workers was the biggest outside financial and operational backer; Denis Hayes said that without the UAW the first Earth Day 'would have likely flopped'.

In how many nations did Denis Hayes organise Earth Day events when he took it international in 1990?

Earth Day 1990 went global with events in 141 nations, mobilising some 200 million people and giving a major boost to recycling efforts worldwide.

Who wrote the 1962 book Silent Spring?

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by Discover magazine.

Silent Spring documented the environmental harm caused by which pesticide?

DDT's agricultural use was banned nationwide in the US in the wake of the book.

What prompted Silent Spring, according to its author's account?

Carson said a friend's letter about dead birds prompted the book: in 1958 Olga Owens Huckins wrote about songbirds killed by DDT spraying near her Duxbury, Massachusetts home.

Which 1951 bestseller won the author of Silent Spring a US National Book Award?

The Sea Around Us (1951) won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and spent 86 weeks on the bestseller list, giving Carson the financial security to write full time.

Which US president posthumously awarded the author of Silent Spring the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Jimmy Carter awarded Rachel Carson the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1980; she had died of cancer in 1964, two years after Silent Spring appeared.

Which Swiss chemist won a Nobel Prize in 1948 for discovering DDT's insecticidal power?

Paul Hermann Müller won the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering DDT's insecticidal power in 1939; the compound itself had been synthesised in 1874 by Othmar Zeidler.

In what year did the US ban DDT for agricultural use?

The EPA banned DDT for agricultural use in the United States in 1972, a decade after Silent Spring; the WHO later allowed limited indoor spraying for malaria control.

Which 2004 treaty on persistent pollutants largely banned agricultural DDT worldwide?

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, adopted in 2001 and in force from May 2004, restricted DDT to disease-vector control such as malaria programmes.

In what year did the US Environmental Protection Agency begin operating?

The EPA opened on December 2, 1970; Richard Nixon had proposed it that July and created it through Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970.

How many regional offices does the EPA have?

The EPA has ten regional offices, numbered Region 1 (Boston) through Region 10 (Seattle), alongside its headquarters in Washington, DC.

In what year was the US Clean Air Act first enacted?

The Clean Air Act was first enacted in 1963; the sweeping 1970 amendments created national air-quality standards, with further major amendments in 1977 and 1990.

Which president signed the Endangered Species Act on December 28, 1973?

Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act on December 28, 1973; in TVA v. Hill (1978) the Supreme Court called it the most comprehensive endangered-species law enacted by any nation.

Which two federal agencies administer the Endangered Species Act?

The US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service administer the act; its section 9 prohibits unlawful 'take' of listed species.

In what year was the bald eagle removed entirely from the US endangered and threatened list?

The bald eagle was delisted on June 28, 2007, after recovering from about 417 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states in 1963 to nearly 10,000; it had been downgraded to threatened in 1995.

The Ohio river that caught fire in June 1969 and helped spark the US environmental movement was the what?

It had caught fire at least 14 times.

Which Ohio city does the river that famously burned in 1969 bisect?

The Cuyahoga River splits Cleveland into east and west sides before emptying into Lake Erie; American Rivers named it River of the Year in 2019 for 50 years of recovery.

Love Canal, the toxic-waste neighbourhood discovered in 1977, is in which city?

Love Canal is a neighbourhood of Niagara Falls, New York, where Hooker Chemical had buried about 21,800 tons of chemical waste before selling the site in 1953.

For how much did Hooker Chemical sell the Love Canal site to the local school district in 1953?

Hooker Chemical sold the site to the Niagara Falls school board in 1953 for $1, with a deed clause warning of buried chemical waste; the later federal cleanup demolished the neighbourhood and ended in 2004.

The Love Canal scandal led Congress to pass which law in 1980?

About 70% of cleanups have been paid for by the polluters themselves.

Which small US state holds about a tenth of all priority Superfund sites?

New Jersey has more National Priorities List sites than any other state, around 115 of roughly 1,300, close to a tenth of the total; a Hazard Ranking System score of 28.5 puts a site on the list.

What was the ozone-protecting Montreal Protocol the first treaty to achieve?

Kofi Annan called it perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date.

In what year was the Montreal Protocol agreed?

The Montreal Protocol was agreed in Montreal on 16 September 1987 and entered into force on 1 January 1989.

The 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol targets which gases?

The Kigali Amendment, agreed in Rwanda in October 2016, phases down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), potent greenhouse gases used in refrigeration, by more than 80% over about 30 years.

Which team of British Antarctic Survey scientists first reported the ozone hole in 1985?

Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jonathan Shanklin of the British Antarctic Survey published the ozone hole in Nature in May 1985 from Halley Bay readings; satellite software had been discarding the low values as errors.

Who calculated in 1896 that doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide would warm Earth's surface by several degrees?

Svante Arrhenius published the calculation in 1896, estimating that doubling carbon dioxide would raise surface temperatures by about 5 to 6 degrees Celsius; he won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for unrelated work.

Which three countries banned CFCs in aerosol spray cans in 1978?

The United States, Canada and Norway banned CFC propellants in aerosol cans in 1978, after a 1976 US National Academy of Sciences report backed the ozone-depletion hypothesis.

Which CFC, used as a refrigerant, is commonly called Freon?

R-12, dichlorodifluoromethane (CFC-12), was DuPont's original Freon refrigerant from 1930; the HFC R-134a replaced it in car air conditioning in the 1990s after the Montreal Protocol.

Which General Motors engineer discovered tetraethyllead's anti-knock effect in 1921?

Thomas Midgley Jr., working under Charles Kettering at General Motors in Dayton, found in December 1921 that tetraethyllead stopped engine knock, after his team screened thousands of compounds.

Which geochemist, while dating the solar system, discovered widespread lead contamination and campaigned against it?

Clair Patterson, who dated the Earth at 4.55 billion years in 1956, found lead contamination in every sample he took and published his first attack on leaded petrol in 1965.

Which country was the last to stop selling leaded petrol for cars, in July 2021?

Algeria was the last country selling leaded petrol for cars, its stocks running out in July 2021; UNEP declared the global end of leaded petrol on August 30, 2021.

Most US petrol cars have carried catalytic converters since which model year?

Catalytic converters became standard on US cars from the 1975 model year to meet EPA exhaust limits, which is also why unleaded petrol arrived; Volvo added the three-way converter on 1977 California cars.

Which two emissions react in the atmosphere to cause acid rain?

Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, largely from coal plants and vehicles, form sulfuric and nitric acids in the air; acid rain typically has a pH of about 4 to 5.

In which year did the Great Smog blanket London for five days?

The Great Smog smothered London from 5 to 9 December 1952, and the outcry led to the UK's Clean Air Act 1956.

Later estimates put the Great Smog's death toll at what?

Official reports at the time put the Great Smog's toll at 4,000, but later research suggests it killed 10,000 to 12,000 people, mostly from bronchitis and pneumonia.

Which diarist wrote Fumifugium, the first book about air pollution, in 1661?

John Evelyn, diarist and founding Fellow of the Royal Society, addressed Fumifugium to Charles II in 1661, proposing to move smoky trades out of London and plant fragrant gardens.

Which gas leaked from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal in December 1984?

Methyl isocyanate, an intermediate for the pesticide carbaryl, leaked from a storage tank on the night of 2 to 3 December 1984, killing thousands in what is called the world's worst industrial disaster.

How much did Union Carbide pay in 1989 to settle litigation over the Bhopal disaster?

Union Carbide paid $470 million in a 1989 settlement with the Indian government, far below the $3.3 billion India had sought; Dow Chemical bought the company in 2001.

Minamata disease, first identified in Japan in 1956, is poisoning by which metal?

Minamata disease is methylmercury poisoning; the mercury built up in fish and shellfish, and local cats that ate them developed what was called 'dancing cat fever' before people fell ill.

Between which two countries did the Aral Sea lie?

The Aral Sea straddled the border between Kazakhstan to the north and Uzbekistan to the south; its name roughly means 'Sea of Islands'.

Before it shrank, where did the Aral Sea rank among the world's lakes by area?

At about 68,000 square kilometres in 1960 the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake on Earth, after the Caspian Sea, Lake Superior and Lake Victoria; by 2007 it had shrunk to a tenth of that.

In which Alaskan body of water did the Exxon Valdez run aground in March 1989?

The Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound just after midnight on March 24, 1989, spilling about 11 million gallons of crude oil.

Who was captain of the Exxon Valdez, and reportedly drinking in a bar before it sailed?

Captain Joseph Hazelwood had been drinking ashore in Valdez and was below decks when third mate Gregory Cousins ran the tanker onto Bligh Reef; he later said Exxon had made him a scapegoat.

Roughly how many miles of coastline did Exxon Valdez oil eventually reach?

Exxon Valdez oil eventually reached about 1,300 miles of coastline in Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska, of which some 200 miles were heavily or moderately oiled.

The Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010 occurred at which BP-operated prospect?

Deepwater Horizon was drilling BP's Macondo Prospect well in the Gulf of Mexico when it blew out on 20 April 2010; the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010.

How much oil did the US government estimate Deepwater Horizon discharged?

The US government's flow-rate group estimated 4.9 million barrels (about 210 million gallons) escaped over 87 days, making it the largest marine oil spill in the petroleum industry's history.

How much did BP agree to pay in April 2016, the largest environmental damage settlement in US history?

A federal judge approved BP's $20.8 billion settlement on 4 April 2016, the largest environmental damage settlement in US history; BP had earlier pleaded guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter.

Where did the supertanker Torrey Canyon run aground in 1967?

It struck Pollard's Rock on the Seven Stones reef.

How did the British authorities try to deal with the wrecked oil tanker Torrey Canyon and its cargo?

Bombing it from the air: Royal Navy and RAF aircraft dropped 1,000-lb bombs and aviation fuel to set the oil ablaze.

The 1969 spill that fouled the coast from Goleta to Ventura and spurred US environmental law happened where?

The blowout on Union Oil's Platform A in the Santa Barbara Channel in January 1969 spilled up to 100,000 barrels and helped inspire Earth Day and the National Environmental Policy Act.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch sits in which part of the ocean?

The central northern gyre of the Pacific holds the patch, whose density is so low it cannot be seen by satellite.

Which sailor brought the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to public attention after crossing it in 1997?

Captain Charles Moore sailed through the patch returning from the 1997 Transpac yacht race and founded the Algalita Marine Research Foundation's studies of it; his 1999 survey found six times more plastic than plankton by weight.

Which organisation had removed about 0.5% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by the end of 2024?

The Ocean Cleanup, founded by Boyan Slat, said its System 03 barriers had removed about 0.5% of the patch by the end of 2024, more than a million pounds of trash.

Which country did a 2021 study rank first for river-borne plastic entering the ocean?

The 2021 Science Advances study by Meijer and colleagues put the Philippines first, with about a third of the world's river-borne plastic emissions, followed by India and Malaysia.

Which country was the first in the world to ban thin plastic bags, in 2002?

Bangladesh banned thin polythene bags in 2002 after they clogged drains and worsened the 1988 and 1998 floods; Rwanda followed with its own ban in 2008.

Which BBC series is credited with a lasting surge of attention to plastic pollution in 2017?

Blue Planet II, narrated by David Attenborough, aired in late 2017; its first episode drew 14.1 million viewers, the UK's most-watched programme of the year, and its final episode on plastic sparked the 'Blue Planet effect'.

Who designed the universal recycling symbol in 1970?

Gary Anderson, a 23-year-old University of Southern California student, designed the three-arrow symbol and won a $2,500 scholarship in the Container Corporation of America's 1970 contest.

The three chasing arrows of the recycling symbol are folded into what shape?

The three chasing arrows form a Möbius strip, a one-sided loop; Gary Anderson's symbol was never trademarked and is in the public domain.

What is the archaeological term for the ancient piles or pits of waste that predate landfills?

Middens are the refuse heaps of shells, bones and pottery that archaeologists excavate; Fresno, California, opened one of the first modern sanitary landfills with daily soil cover in 1937.

In which city did Greenpeace open its first office?

Greenpeace was founded in Vancouver in 1971 and its first office was a backroom storefront in the Kitsilano neighbourhood; Greenpeace International later moved its headquarters to Amsterdam.

What was Greenpeace's forerunner group, formed in 1970, called?

The Don't Make a Wave Committee formed in Vancouver in 1970 to oppose a US nuclear test on the Alaskan island of Amchitka; the name Greenpeace was first painted on its chartered boat in 1971.

Which singer-songwriter performed at the 1970 benefit concert that funded the first Greenpeace voyage?

Joni Mitchell played the 16 October 1970 concert at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum alongside James Taylor and Phil Ochs; the recording was released in 2009 as the album Amchitka.

In which harbour did French agents sink Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in July 1985?

French DGSE agents mined the Rainbow Warrior at Marsden Wharf in Auckland harbour on 10 July 1985; photographer Fernando Pereira drowned.

What was the French codename for the operation to sink the Rainbow Warrior?

The DGSE called it Opération Satanique; when the plot unravelled, defence minister Charles Hernu resigned and intelligence chief Pierre Lacoste was sacked.

Which Greenpeace board member was ousted and went on to found Sea Shepherd?

Paul Watson was voted off the Greenpeace board in 1977 and founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society; Cleveland Amory of the Fund for Animals paid for his first ship in 1978.

Which panda inspired WWF's logo?

Chi Chi, the giant panda that arrived at London Zoo in 1958, inspired the logo that Sir Peter Scott drew when WWF was founded.

In what year was WWF conceived?

WWF was conceived in 1961 with the Morges Manifesto, and its first office opened that year at IUCN headquarters in Morges, Switzerland.

Which organisation runs Earth Hour?

Earth Hour is run by the World Wildlife Fund, which launched it in 2007; lights go off from 8:30 to 9:30 pm, usually on the last Saturday of March.

In which city did Earth Hour begin as a lights-off event in 2007?

Earth Hour began in Sydney on 31 March 2007, when about 2.2 million people switched off their lights; its working title had been 'The Big Flick'.

Who founded the Sierra Club in San Francisco in 1892?

John Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1892 and was its president until his death in 1914; members later devised the Yosemite Decimal System for grading climbs.

In which country was the 'Father of the National Parks' born?

John Muir, the 'Father of the National Parks', was born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838 and emigrated to Wisconsin at 11; his Century Magazine articles helped push Congress to create Yosemite National Park in 1890.

Which president signed the act creating Yellowstone, the world's first national park, in 1872?

Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act on 1 March 1872; the US Army administered the park for 30 years from 1886 until the National Park Service took over.

Which Kenyan founded the tree-planting Green Belt Movement and won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize?

Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977 and won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, the first African woman to do so.

Under whose auspices was the Green Belt Movement established in 1977?

Maathai launched the Green Belt Movement in 1977 under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya, which she later chaired, paying rural women to plant seedlings.

What does 'Chipko', the name of India's 1970s forest movement, literally mean?

Protesters wrapped their arms around trees so they could not be felled.

Who led 27 women of Reni village to confront loggers in the Chipko movement's key stand-off of March 1974?

Gaura Devi led 27 women of Reni village, Uttarakhand, to block the loggers on 26 March 1974; after a four-day stand-off the contractors withdrew.

For how many days did Julia Butterfly Hill live in a California redwood to save it from loggers?

Julia Butterfly Hill lived in the ancient redwood she called Luna for 738 days, from December 1997 to December 1999, until Pacific Lumber agreed to spare it.

Where did 15-year-old Greta Thunberg hold the 2018 solo school strike that inspired Fridays for Future?

Outside the Swedish parliament, at age 15; the strike inspired the worldwide Fridays for Future movement.

Which utility did Erin Brockovich help build a groundwater-contamination case against in 1993?

Erin Brockovich helped build the case against Pacific Gas & Electric over hexavalent chromium in the groundwater of Hinkley, California; PG&E settled for $333 million in 1996, and Julia Roberts played her in the 2000 film.

The 2014 Michigan water crisis began when one city switched its supply to which source?

Flint switched its supply from Detroit's Lake Huron water to the Flint River in April 2014; officials failed to add corrosion inhibitors, so lead leached from old pipes.

In which Ukrainian plant did reactor 4 explode on 26 April 1986?

Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl plant near Pripyat exploded during a botched safety test; it is one of only two accidents rated level 7, the maximum on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

Radiation from the 1986 Soviet reactor explosion was first detected abroad at a plant in which country?

Alarms at Sweden's Forsmark nuclear plant, over 1,000 km from Chernobyl, went off on 28 April 1986 when workers' shoes set off radiation monitors, exposing the accident to the world.

Near which Pennsylvania city did the Three Mile Island partial meltdown occur in 1979?

Three Mile Island sits in the Susquehanna River about 10 miles south of Harrisburg; the film The China Syndrome had premiered 12 days before the 28 March 1979 accident.

How was Three Mile Island rated on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale?

Three Mile Island was rated 5, 'accident with wider consequences', on the seven-point INES; its small radioactive releases had no detectable health effects.

In what year did the International Whaling Commission vote for a pause on commercial whaling?

The IWC voted for the moratorium in 1982, and it took effect from the 1985-86 season; Japan announced its withdrawal from the commission in December 2018.

The wildlife-trade treaty CITES is also known by the name of which city?

CITES is also called the Washington Convention because it was signed in Washington, DC, in March 1973; it entered into force on 1 July 1975.

The Ramsar Convention on wetlands is named after a city in which country?

Ramsar is a city on Iran's Caspian coast where the convention was signed on 2 February 1971, the date marked each year as World Wetlands Day.

As of 2024, which country had designated the most Ramsar wetland sites?

As of 2024 the United Kingdom had designated 175 Ramsar sites, more than any other country, with Mexico second on about 140.

In what year was the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species founded?

The IUCN Red List was established in 1964 and aims to re-evaluate every assessed species at least once every ten years.

Which three IUCN Red List categories are collectively called 'threatened'?

Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable are the three 'threatened' categories; Near Threatened sits just below them and Least Concern means widespread and abundant.

The founders of the Environmental Defense Fund linked DDT to what problem in large birds?

The Environmental Defense Fund's founders on Long Island showed that DDT caused thinning of egg shells in ospreys and other raptors, whose numbers were collapsing in the mid-1960s; their lawsuits led to the 1972 ban.

On which date is the UN's World Environment Day celebrated?

World Environment Day is 5 June; the first, in 1973, had the theme 'Only One Earth' and the day is led by the UN Environment Programme.

Which 1972 UN gathering established World Environment Day?

The UN Conference on the Human Environment, the Stockholm Conference, ran from 5 to 16 June 1972 and created both World Environment Day and the UN Environment Programme.

Where is The Nature Conservancy headquartered?

The Nature Conservancy is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac from Washington; it has protected well over 100 million acres since its founding in 1951.

How many greenhouse gases does Kyoto Protocol Annex A list for its second commitment period?

Annex A covers seven gases for the 2013-2020 second commitment period: the original six (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs, PFCs and sulfur hexafluoride) plus nitrogen trifluoride, added by the 2012 Doha Amendment.

Which country withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, effective December 2012?

Canada announced its withdrawal in December 2011 and it took effect on 15 December 2012, sparing it penalties for missing its target; all 36 countries that fully participated met their first-period targets.

What preferred limit on global warming does the Paris Agreement set?

The Paris Agreement's binding aim is to hold warming 'well below 2 °C' while 'pursuing efforts' to limit it to 1.5 °C, the preferred figure pushed by small island states.

Which two UN bodies set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988?

It has 195 member states and does no original research of its own.

With whom did Al Gore share the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize?

His documentary An Inconvenient Truth had won two Oscars earlier that year.

Who directed the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth?

Davis Guggenheim directed An Inconvenient Truth after producer Laurie David saw Gore's slide show at a New York town hall meeting; it won the 2007 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

How many Sustainable Development Goals did UN members adopt in 2015?

UN members adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in September 2015, with 169 measurable targets to be met by 2030.

Roughly what share of Earth's land surface was covered by forest as of 2020?

The FAO's 2020 Global Forest Resources Assessment put forest at 4.06 billion hectares, about 31% of the land surface; roughly half of all historical forest loss has happened since 1900.

Which activity directly caused nearly 90% of global deforestation between 2000 and 2018?

FAO's 2021 remote-sensing survey found agriculture, cropland expansion plus livestock grazing, was the direct driver of almost 90% of deforestation from 2000 to 2018, with cropland alone accounting for about half.

Renewable energy grew from 20% to what share of global electricity supply between 2011 and 2021?

Renewables supplied about 28% of global electricity in 2021, up from 20% in 2011; solar and wind together rose from 2% to 10% of the total over the decade.

Under whose mentorship did Jane Goodall begin studying chimpanzees at Gombe Stream in 1960?

Louis Leakey sent Jane Goodall to Gombe in July 1960 and later arranged her Cambridge PhD in ethology, completed in 1965, although she had no undergraduate degree.

Dian Fossey studied mountain gorillas in which country until her murder in 1985?

Dian Fossey ran the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda's Virunga Mountains from 1967 until she was murdered there in December 1985; her book Gorillas in the Mist became a 1988 film.

Over which issue did 100-plus Nobel laureates write an open letter urging Greenpeace to stop?

In 2016 more than 100 Nobel laureates signed an open letter urging Greenpeace to end its opposition to GMOs, especially vitamin-A-enriched Golden Rice; Greenpeace accepts no money from governments or corporations.

Which city hosted the UN Conference on Environment and Development in June 1992?

Rio de Janeiro hosted the conference in June 1992, with 172 governments taking part; it popularised sustainable development and produced the UNFCCC, the treaty behind the annual COP meetings.

The Keeling Curve of rising CO2 rests on measurements begun in 1958 at which observatory?

Charles David Keeling's readings at Mauna Loa, Hawaii climbed from 313 parts per million in March 1958 to over 400 ppm by 2018, and still rise about 2.5 ppm a year.

Which forester's 1949 essay collection A Sand County Almanac introduced the idea of a 'land ethic'?

Aldo Leopold's son Luna edited and published the book a year after his death; it has since sold over two million copies in at least fourteen languages.