Environment
The Shocking River Fire That Fueled the Creation of the EPA
Fires were nothing out of the ordinary on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River in the 1960s. The city was still a manufacturing hub and the river, which empties into Lake Erie, had long been a dumping place for sewage and industrial waste. But on June 22, 1969, a spark flared from the ...read more
How Nixon Became the Unlikely Champion of the Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act was created by a somewhat unlikely hero: President Richard M. Nixon. Although Nixon expressed personal disgust with environmentalists in private, he also recognized that Americans’ interest in the environment was not a passing fad. Nixon used his ...read more
Norway’s Trees Are Still Scarred by Nazi Chemicals
The Nazis’ efforts to protect one of their biggest battleships from Allied attacks during World War II left a lasting mark on the Norwegian landscape. Commissioned in 1941, the German battleship Tirpitz spent much of the war stationed in various fjords along the coast of Norway, ...read more
Mount St. Helens
Mount St. Helens is a volcano located in southwestern Washington state. It’s the most active volcano in the Cascade Range, a mountain range that extends from British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to northern California. For thousands of years, Mount St. Helens has ...read more
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a manmade disaster that occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker owned by the Exxon Shipping Company, spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. It was the worst oil spill in U.S. history until ...read more
Why the Vikings Struggled in Iceland and Greenland—And Some Didn’t Make It
Can something that happened 1,000 years ago still affect people today? Of course it can. Just ask Iceland. When Vikings came to Iceland over a millennium ago, they slashed and burned trees to make room for farming. Within a few centuries, they’d wiped out most of the region’s ...read more
Thoreau Started a Forest Fire a Year Before Writing ‘Walden’
Henry David Thoreau is known for living in the woods on the shore of Walden Pond, in self-sufficient isolation. Less known, however, is that a year before building his cabin in Concord, Massachusetts, the famous American author and environmentalist accidentally started a forest ...read more
History of Arbor Day
Arbor Day–which literally translates to “tree” day from the Latin origin of the word arbor–is a holiday that celebrates the planting, upkeep and preservation of trees. For centuries, communities spanning the globe have found various ways to honor nature and the environment. ...read more
10 Famous Trees in History
1. Anne Frank’s Chestnut Tree (Amsterdam, Netherlands) For the two years that Anne Frank remained hidden in the “secret annex” of her father’s workplace, a lone attic window offered her only glimpse of the outside world. The teenager often gazed out and took comfort in the ...read more
7 Deadly Environmental Disasters
1. Dust Bowl Around World War I, homesteaders flocked in mass to the southern Great Plains, where they replaced the native grasses that held the topsoil in place with wheat and other crops. Eschewing sustainable agricultural practices, such as crop rotation, they managed to reap ...read more
Prehistoric Beaches Hold Key to Understanding Climate Change
As reported in the New York Times this week, a team of scientists headed by Dr. Maureen E. Raymo of Columbia University traveled to the southern and western coasts of South Africa last summer to find prehistoric beaches that could contain invaluable records of past climate ...read more
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a work relief program that gave millions of young men employment on environmental projects during the Great Depression. Considered by many to be one of the most successful of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, the CCC planted more than three ...read more
Early Environmentalists
The green movement has gained momentum since April 22, 1970, when 20 million people participated in the very first Earth Day. But can we really call ourselves the greenest generation? Eco-friendly initiatives—many closely resembling our modern efforts—date all the way back to ...read more
A bomb sinks the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel
In Auckland harbor in New Zealand, Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior sinks after French agents in diving gear plant a bomb on the hull of the vessel. One person, Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira, was killed. The Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of international conservation group ...read more
Jacques Cousteau’s “The Silent World” is published
On February 3, 1953, French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau publishes The Silent World, a memoir about his time exploring the oceans. It became a highly acclaimed documentary in 1956. Born in Saint-Andre-de-Cubzac, France, in 1910, Cousteau was trained at the Brest Naval ...read more
The first Earth Day
Earth Day, an event to increase public awareness of the world’s environmental problems, is celebrated in the United States for the first time on April 22, 1970. Millions of Americans, including students from thousands of colleges and universities, participated in rallies, marches ...read more
Ballinger-Pinchot scandal erupts
The Ballinger-Pinchot scandal erupts when Colliers magazine accuses Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger of shady dealings in Alaskan coal lands. It is, in essence, a conflict rooted in contrasting ideas about how to best use and conserve western natural resources. ...read more