Enviro Term Set #1

Bhopal, India

Definition: A gas leak incident in India, considered the world's worst industrial disaster. It occurred on the night of 2-3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Over 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and other chemicals. Question: What was the significance of this event? Answer: The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The government of Madhya Pradesh confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. Others estimate 8,000 died within two weeks and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases.

Endangered Species Act

Definition: Act designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation." Question: What legal protections does it offer endangered species? Be able to 5 animals on this list. And 2 animals that have had successful populations recoveries as a result. Answer: It authorized the Secretary of the Interior to list endangered domestic fish and wildlife and allowed the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to spend up to $15 million per year to buy habitats for listed species. It also directed federal land agencies to preserve habitat on their lands. Amur Leopard, Black Rhino, Leatherback Turtle, Mountain Gorilla, Blue Whale. Whooping Crane, Gray Wolf.

Deepwater Horizon

Definition: An ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore oil drilling rig owned by Transocean which exploded. Question: What was the significance of this event? Answer: the explosion on the rig caused by a blowout killed 11 crewmen. The resulting fire could not be extinguished and Deepwater Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing at the seabed and causing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Establishment of Yellowstone National Park

Definition: Ferdinand V. Hayden explored this region with government sponsorship and his expedition convinced the government to withdraw this region from public auction. Question: What law was passed to enable this park to be created? Answer: March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed "The Act of Dedication" law that created Yellowstone National Park.

Aldo Leopold

Definition: Leopold was influential in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation. Question: What important book did he write? What was its basic message? Answer: A Sand County Almanac. The collection of essays advocate Leopold's idea of a "land ethic", or a responsible relationship existing between people and the land they inhabit.

Sierra Club

Definition: The Sierra Club is one of the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organizations in the United States. Question: How has this group worked successfully to help the environment? Answer: In recent years, the club has gravitated towards green politics and especially towards bright green environmentalism. Recent focuses of the club include green energy and preventing climate change, although traditional concerns such as the preservation of public lands and mitigating pollution remain policy priorities.

First Earth Day

Definition: The first Earth Day family had participants and celebrants in two thousand colleges and universities, roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States. More importantly, it "brought 20 million Americans out into the spring sunshine for peaceful demonstrations in favor of environmental reform." Question: Why is this significant? What does it say about the US? Answer: This is significant because it brings together countries whereas planet earth is where all humans reside. It says that the US is a considerate country and cares for the environment.

Clean Water Act

Definition: The primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Question: VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW what regulations this established and what agency establishes and measures the regs Answer: The objective of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, commonly referred to as the Clean Water Act (CWA), is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters by preventing point and nonpoint pollution sources, providing assistance to publicly owned treatment works for the improvement of wastewater treatment, and maintaining the integrity of wetlands. The 1972 act introduced the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES).

John Muir

Definition: a Scottish-American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. Question: What legacy did he leave behind? Answer: His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. John Muir Trail, a hiking trail in the Sierra Nevada, was named in his honor. Other such places include Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir and Muir Glacier.

Superfund Law

Definition: a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances as well as broadly defined "pollutants or contaminants". Question: Give its real name. How is it used today? Answer: Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. Superfund also gives authority to federal natural resource agencies, states and Native American tribes to recover natural resource damages caused by releases of hazardous substances.

Clean Air Act

Definition: a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. Question: VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW what regulations this established and what agency establishes and measures the regs? Answer: Established regulations regarding both stationary (industrial) pollution sources and mobile sources. 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.

National Park Service Act

Definition: a United States federal law that established the National Park Service (NPS), an agency of the United States Department of the Interior. The Act was signed into law on August 25, 1916, by President Woodrow Wilson Question: What legacy does this act have today? How is it helping preserve natural areas? Answer: The 21,989 employees of the NPS oversee 401 units, of which 59 are designated national parks.

Lacey Act

Definition: a conservation law in the United States that prohibits trade in wildlife, fish, and plants that have been illegally taken, possessed, transported or sold. Question: What events prompted the development of this law? Answer: In 1900, illegal commercial hunting threatened many game species in the United States.

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species

Definition: a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals. Question: Know the acronym. What legal protection does it offer endangered species? Answer: CITES. It ensures that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species in the wild.

Three Mile Island

Definition: 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. The incident was rated a five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident With Wider Consequences. Question: What was the significance of this event? Answer: hundreds of environmental samples were taken around TMI during the accident period by the Department of Energy (which had the lead sampling role) or the then-Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources. But there were no unusually high readings, except for noble gases, and virtually no iodine. Readings were far below health limits. Yet a political storm was raging based on confusion and misinformation.

Paul Ehrlich

Definition: a prominent ecologist and demographer. Ehrlich is best known for his dire warnings about population growth and limited resources. Ehrlich became well-known after publication of his controversial 1968 book The Population Bomb. Question: What impact did his book have on environmental science? Answer: Idk

Land and Water Conservation Act

Definition: an Act of Congress in 1964 to provide funds and matching grants to federal, state and local governments. Question: Established a fund to do what? Answer: for the acquisition of land and water, and easements on land and water, for the benefit of all Americans.

Garrett Hardin

Definition: an American ecologist who warned of the dangers of overpopulation. known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology Question: What main idea did he describe? Explain it. Answer: "You cannot do only one thing", which "modestly implies that there is at least one unwanted consequence."

Rachel Carson

Definition: an American marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. Question: What impact did her book have on environmental policy in the US? Answer: Her book led to a nationwide ban on DDT for agricultural uses, and inspired an environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Montreal Protocol

Definition: an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. Question: What was the significance of this event? Answer: As a result of the international agreement, the ozone hole in Antarctica is slowly recovering.

Kyoto Protocol

Definition: an international treaty that sets binding obligations on industrialized countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Question: What was the significance of this event? Answer: the Protocol "recognizes that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, and places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of 'common but differentiated responsibilities'."

Exxon Valdez

Definition: an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil in Alaska. Question: What was the significance of this event? Answer: the vessel ran aground on the Bligh Reef resulting in the second largest oil spill in United States history.

Cuyahoga River

Definition: located in Northeast Ohio in the United States and feeds Lake Erie. The river is famous for being "the river that caught fire,". Native Americans called this winding water "Cuyahoga," which means "crooked river" in an Iroquoian language. Question: What was the significance of this event? Answer: It helped spur the environmental movement in the late 1960s.

Marine Mammal Protection Act

Definition: the first act of the United States Congress to call specifically for an ecosystem approach to natural resource management and conservation. Question: What legal protection does it offer sea faring mammals? Answer: MMPA prohibits the taking of marine mammals, and enacts a moratorium on the import, export, and sale of any marine mammal, along with any marine mammal part or product within the United States.

Resources Conservation and Recovery Act

Definition: the principal federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste. Question: Established what type of regulations? Answer: It set national goals for: Protecting human health and the natural environment from the potential hazards of waste disposal; Energy conservation and natural resources; Reducing the amount of waste generated, through source reduction and recycling; Ensuring the management of waste in an environmentally sound manner.

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

Definition: A decommissioned nuclear power station near the city of Pripyat, Ukraine, 9.0 mi northwest of the city of Chernobyl. Reactor No. 4 was the site of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and the power plant is now within a large restricted area known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Question: What was the significance of this event? Answer: During the accident itself 31 people died, and long-term effects such as cancers and deformities are still being accounted for.

Love Canal, NY

Definition: was a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, located in the LaSalle section of the city. It officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River one-quarter mile (400 m) to the south. In the mid-1970s Love Canal 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 (now Occidental Petroleum Corporation). Question: What was the significance of this event? What funds were used to partially clean up the area? Answer: It helped spur the environmental movement in the late 1960s. Occidental Petroleum was sued by the EPA and in 1995 agreed to pay $129 million in restitution.

Wilderness Act

Definition: written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society. It created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected 9.1 million acres of federal land. Question: Make sure you define what wilderness is? Do all countries have wilderness areas? Answer: Definition - a wild and natural area in which few people live. Every country has wilderness areas.