The Environment and The Republic
LONDON'S KILLER FOG / THE GREAT SMOG OF 1952
An illuminating example of how air pollution can turn deadly. London's Great Smog of 1952 was blamed for thousands of deaths, and increased public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health. Eventually leading to the implementation of practices to reduce air pollution, and regulations and laws to improve air quality, including the Clean Air Act of 1956 (United Kingdom).
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An Objective Source for Environmental News - Environmental History
Welsh Mine Debris Disaster / Coal Mining Debris Landslide - Aberfan, Wales
On the morning of October 21, 1966, a massive pile of coal mining waste debris known as a ‘spoil tip’ located on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan collapsed due to heavy rains and slide downhill toward the buildings and residents of the village below. The deadly landslide of coal waste slurry smashed into the unsuspecting town killing 144 of its residents including 116 children - almost all the children while attending classes at the Pantglas Junior School where 109 students and 5 teachers were killed. The Deadly incident serves as a tragic example of how negligence and a failure to properly manage the byproducts of industry, in this case coaling mining waste, can have destructive and lethal consequences impacting the lives of many innocent people.
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Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill - Gulf of Mexico, USA
On April 20, 2010, the largest marine oil spill in history occurred in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig, operating in deepwater was working above a recently drilled oil well 4,993 feet below the surface when a recently installed concrete core, designed to plug and seal the well for later use, failed leading to a surge of natural gas blasting through the containment cement plug and up the oil rigs riser pipe - igniting once the gas reached the oil rig in a catastrophic explosion that killed 11 workers and injured another 17. The resulting inferno led to the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon rig and a rupturing of the riser pipe from which oil was designed to flow. In the aftermath of the initial disaster, oil would begin to flow unrestrained into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of up to 60,000 barrels per day. It would take over four months (April 20 to September 17) before the underwater gusher of oil was finally stopped and the the oil well was finally sealed; by that time, it was estimated that approximately 4,900,000 barrels of oil had leaked into the Gulf of Mexico with less than 1,000,000 barrels being captured through recover efforts. The unrestrained deluge of oil devastated thousands of miles of open water in the gulf and along the coast line Louisiana with oil reaching the shores of several other US States including Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
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Hidden Hazards - Love Canal, New York - America’s First Superfund Toxic Waste Cleanup Site
In the 1970s, a neighborhood’s prior land use would come back to haunt the residents and homeowners of Love Canal, New York. A sordid and multifaceted land development history involving an ambitious entrepreneurial effort to construct a canal, a convenient and inexpensive method for a chemical company to cheaply dispose of waste byproducts, and later an opportunistic plan to develop the surrounding land for a school and residential community led to one of America’s most significant environmental disasters: toxic chemicals seeping into people's yards and homes, and high rates of cancer and illnesses devastating families. In what would become one of the country’s first superfund hazardous waste cleanup sites, Love Canal was an invaluable lesson learned: You can’t just bury the past without consequences.
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The Love Canal Disaster (Article)
The Love Canal Disaster: Toxic Waste in the Neighborhood (Video)
World's 4th Largest Lake Dies At the Hands of Soviet Era Communist Planning
The Aral Sea in Central Asia was once the 4th Largest Lake in the World. In the past 50 years the Aral Sea has declined to 10% of its original size. Described as one of the planet's worst environmental disasters, the Aral Sea didn't lose over 90% of its water volume as a result of Climate Change or Global Warming, rather it's demise is the result of a, water diverting, communist irrigation scheme that undermined the lake's health and sustainable. In the process, increasing economic hardship by destroying the Aral Sea's once thriving fishing industry, and increasing pollution by turning most of the lake and its surrounding wetland areas into a desolate desert of blowing sands and minerals.
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Aral Sea: Film for BBC Newsnight (Video)
Aral Sea: How Soviet pollution destroyed the Aral Sea (Video)
Aral Sea's Eastern Basin Is Dry For First Time In 600 Years (Article)
Cuyahoga River Pollution / Fire
The Cuyahoga River (Ohio) is one of America's most notoriously polluted waterways. Overtime, industrial pollution pouring into the river, and dumping, contributed to large stretches of the river becoming devoid of fish and other forms of aquatic life. The Cayuga became so heavily laden with petrochemical byproducts and other flammable materials that on numerous occasion from the 1860's to 1960's sections of the river actually caught fire. Eventually, media coverage of these events, and an increasing public awareness of the negative impact of pollution on our nations rivers and waterways, lead to a growing civic consensus in support of environmental laws (Clean Water Act) and regulations intended to reduce water pollution and improve the nation's water quality.
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The Waters of San Francisco: A History of the Bay Area Drinking Water Supply
In the early 1900s, an epic battle between pro-development conservationists and impassioned environmental preservationists, led by the legendary John Muir, marked the struggle over the fate of the Hetch Hetchy Valley and helped shape the future of the City of San Francisco as a progressive, modern and prosperous urban space. Hetch Hetchy Valley (located on the western edge of Yosemite National Park) proved to be a much sought after natural resource - not for its majestic vistas, but for its ideal location for a reservoir and dam to provide a much needed, vital, water supply for the people of San Francisco and other growing populations around the Bay Area; a reservoir capturing and storing a cache of pristine waters from a wild and undeveloped section of the Sierra Nevada mountains; a valuable commodity providing for the needs of millions of people. For an in-depth discussion on the prominent conservationist and environmentalist personalities who supported and opposed the historical Hetch Hetchy Project and more detailed background info - Click on Story Audio Link Below:
San Francisco vs. John Muir: The Fight Over The Remote Hetch Hetchy Valley