Did you know?

... 2024 — Thirty years ago, when David Helvarg wrote “The War Against the Greens,” most of the opposition to environmental protection, at the time, came from polluting corporations and the extreme far right of the political spectrum. Today, that war has expanded into a global effort led by the American Republican party.

... 2023 — “Life on planet Earth is under siege. We are now in an uncharted territory. For several decades, scientists have consistently warned of a future marked by extreme climatic conditions because of escalating global temperatures caused by ongoing human activities that release harmful greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, time is up.” — cf. Bioscience/State of the Climate Report.

... 1992 — The Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to June 14, was unprecedented for a United Nations conference, in terms of both its size and the scope of its concerns.

... 1992 — The Canadian government closes all eastern seaboard fishing grounds due to insufficient recovery of the stock.

... 1992 — The metaphor Ecological footprint is coined by William Rees.

... 1972 The Club of Rome publishes its report Limits to Growth, which has sold 30 million copies in more than 30 translations, making it the best-selling environmental book in world history.

... 1960 — Mobilisation in France to preserve the Vanoise National Park in the Alpes (Val d'Isère, Tignes, etc.) from an important touristic project. The park itself was created three years later, in 1963, and was the first French natural park.

... 1948 — International Union for the Conservation of Nature is established in the French town of Fontainebleau. “As the first global environmental union, it brought together governments and civil society organizations … to encourage international cooperation and provide scientific knowledge and tools to guide conservation action.”

... 1933 — Chicago World's Fair opens as testament to science and technology, with the deterministic motto: "Science finds, Industry applies, Man adapts." Glimpses of the future include streamlined locomotives, dream cars with powerful engines, and a visit by the Graf Zeppelin from Germany.

... 1876 — Diky Bird Society was launched to encourage kindness to animals and feeding of birds. The Diky Birds pledged was "I hereby promise to be kind to all living this, to protect them to the utmost of my power, to feed the birds in the wintertime, and never to take or destroy a nest."

... 1862 — Formation in Sri Lanka of the Animals Non-Violence Society and passage of the first wildlife protection law adopted under British rule. The first Sri Lankan anti-cruelty law was not passed until 1907.

... 1858 — The “Great Stink” of sewage in the Thames River spurs work of British Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal. Meanwhile, revolts break out in India, and the two events become linked in the public mind: “For the first time in the history of man, the sewage of nearly three million people had been brought to seethe and ferment under a burning sun… The result we all know. Stench so foul we may well believe had never before ascended to pollute this lower air. Never before, at least, had a stink risen to the height of an historic event… For months together this topic was almost monopolized in public prints… ‘India is in revolt and the Thames stinks’ were two great facts coupled together … to mark the climax of a national humiliation.”

... 1661 — John Evelyn writes “Fumifugium, or the Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoake of London Dissipated” to propose remedies for London’s air pollution problem. These include large public parks and lots of flowers. In his diary, Evelyn writes in 1684 that smoke was so severe “hardly could one see across the street, and this filling the lungs with its gross particles exceedingly obstructed the breast, so as one would scarce breathe.”