120 Fun Facts About Environmental

On what date is Earth Day held every year?

The first one, in 1970, was focused on the United States.

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

He hired the young activist Denis Hayes as national coordinator.

Who coined the name '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?

Denis Hayes said that without it 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?

By 2016 the Paris Agreement was being signed on Earth Day.

Who wrote the 1962 book Silent Spring?

Discover magazine later named it one of the 25 greatest science books of all time.

Silent Spring documented the environmental harm caused by which pesticide?

The book led to a nationwide US ban on its agricultural use.

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

Olga Owens Huckins wrote to The Boston Herald about her land in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

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

It gave her financial security and let her write full time.

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

She died two years after the book came out.

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

DDT itself had been synthesised in 1874 by Austrian chemist Othmar Zeidler.

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

Limited public-health use for malaria control is still permitted under WHO guidelines.

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

It covers persistent organic pollutants.

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

Richard Nixon proposed it that July and it opened on December 2 after an executive order.

How many regional offices does the EPA have?

It also runs 27 laboratories around the country.

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

It has been amended many times since.

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

The Supreme Court called it the most comprehensive endangered-species law enacted by any nation.

Which two federal agencies administer the Endangered Species Act?

Section 9 of the act prohibits unlawful 'take' of listed species.

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

It had been downgraded from endangered 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?

American Rivers named it River of the Year in 2019 for 50 years of resurgence.

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

Hooker Chemical had dumped 19,800 tonnes of chemical byproducts there.

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

The Superfund cleanup that followed demolished the neighbourhood, ending 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?

A Hazard Ranking System score of 28.5 puts a site on the National Priorities 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?

It entered into force on 1 January 1989.

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

Countries promised to cut them by more than 80% over 30 years.

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

Satellite software had been filtering out the low readings as errors.

Crutzen, Molina and Rowland won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on what?

DuPont's chairman had called the ozone theory 'a load of rubbish'.

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

A 1976 US National Academy of Sciences report had backed the depletion hypothesis.

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

Its full name is dichlorodifluoromethane.

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

Some 33,000 substances had been screened.

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

He began his campaign against lead poisoning in 1965.

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

UNEP declared an official end to its use in cars on August 30, 2021.

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

Volvo commercialised the three-way converter on California-spec 1977 cars.

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

Acid rain typically has a pH of 4 to 5.

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

It led to the UK's Clean Air Act 1956.

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

Government reports at the time said 4,000.

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

London's air quality had been a problem since at least the 13th century.

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

It is considered the world's worst industrial disaster.

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

Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide in 2001.

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

Local cats developed what was called 'dancing cat fever'.

Which corporation's chemical factory released the wastewater that caused Minamata disease?

The discharges continued from 1932 to 1968.

Between which two countries did the Aral Sea lie?

Its name roughly means 'Sea of Islands'.

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

By 2007 it had fallen to 10% of its original size.

What is the dried-up eastern basin of the Aral Sea now called?

NASA images in August 2014 showed it completely dry for the first time in modern history.

Which Kazakh dam, completed in 2005, helped revive the North Aral Sea?

By 2013 fish were back in numbers sufficient for some fishing.

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

It struck Bligh Reef just after midnight.

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

He was not on the bridge when the ship hit the reef and accused Exxon of making him a scapegoat.

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

About 200 miles were heavily or moderately oiled.

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

The well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010.

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

That made it the largest marine oil spill in petroleum industry history.

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

It 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 Torrey Canyon?

Buccaneers dropped 1,000-lb bombs and Hunters dropped 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?

It came from a blowout on Union Oil's Platform A.

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

Its density is so low it cannot be seen by satellite.

How much plastic does the gyre of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch hold for every pound of plankton?

The patch is believed to have grown tenfold each decade since 1945.

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

That amounted to more than a million pounds of trash.

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

India and Malaysia came next.

Which was the first European country to ban lightweight plastic bags, in July 2018?

Traders risked fines of up to 1.5 million lek.

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

It drew 14.1 million viewers, the UK's highest of the year.

Who designed the universal recycling symbol in 1970?

He won a $2,500 scholarship in a Container Corporation of America contest.

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

The symbol is in the public domain and not trademarked.

Recycling is which step in the 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' hierarchy?

Composting food waste is also counted as a form of recycling.

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

Systematic burial of waste with daily covers only began in the 1940s.

In which city did Greenpeace open its first office?

It was a backroom storefront in Kitsilano; Greenpeace International is now based in Amsterdam.

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

It opposed a US nuclear test on the Alaskan island of Amchitka.

Which folk singer supported the 1970 benefit concert that funded the first Greenpeace voyage?

The concert was released on CD in 2009 as Amchitka.

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

Photographer Fernando Pereira drowned.

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

Defence minister Charles Hernu resigned over the scandal.

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

Cleveland Amory of the Fund for Animals paid for his first ship in 1978.

Which panda inspired WWF's logo?

She had moved from Beijing Zoo to London Zoo in 1958; Sir Peter Scott designed the logo.

In what year was WWF conceived?

Its first office opened at IUCN headquarters in Morges, Switzerland.

Which organisation runs Earth Hour?

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?

Its working title had been 'The Big Flick'.

Who founded the Sierra Club in San Francisco in 1892?

Its members later pioneered the Yosemite Decimal System of climbing.

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

His articles in The Century Magazine 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?

The US Army ran the park for 30 years from 1886.

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

She was the first African woman to win the prize.

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

It empowers women through planting trees.

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?

After a four-day stand-off the contractors left.

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

The tree was known as Luna.

Where was Greta Thunberg's first solo school strike held in 2018?

It inspired the worldwide Fridays for Future movement.

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

The town was Hinkley, California; Julia Roberts played her in the 2000 film.

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

Officials failed to add corrosion inhibitors, so lead leached from old pipes.

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

It is one of only two accidents rated at the maximum level on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

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

Alarms went off at Forsmark, over 1,000 km away, on 28 April.

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

The film The China Syndrome had premiered 12 days earlier.

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

Its small releases had no detectable health effects.

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

Japan announced its withdrawal from the IWC in December 2018.

Roughly how many African elephants were killed for ivory each year during the 1980s?

The population fell from about 1.3 million in 1979 to 600,000 by 1989.

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

It entered into force on 1 July 1975.

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

It was signed there in 1971.

Which country has the most Ramsar wetland sites?

Brazil has the largest listed area at around 267,000 square kilometres.

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

It aims to re-evaluate every species at least every ten years.

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

'Least Concern' means widespread and abundant in the wild.

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

They noticed ospreys and other raptors disappearing in the mid-1960s.

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

The first, in 1973, had the theme 'Only one earth'.

Which 1972 UN gathering established World Environment Day?

It ran from 5 to 16 June 1972.

Where is The Nature Conservancy headquartered?

It has protected more than 119 million acres in its history.

How many greenhouse gases were listed in Annex A of the Kyoto Protocol?

Nitrogen trifluoride was added for the second commitment period.

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

All 36 fully participating countries met their first-period targets.

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

The hard goal is 'well below 2 °C'.

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?

Producer Laurie David had seen Gore's slide show at a town hall meeting.

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

They come with 169 measurable targets for 2030.

Global Footprint Network estimates humanity is using natural capital how much faster than Earth can renew it?

The ecological footprint compares demand with biocapacity.

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

Half of the historical forest loss occurred in the last century.

What was the direct cause of nearly 90% of global deforestation in 2025?

Cropland expansion and pasture creation are the main drivers.

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

Solar and wind together rose from 2% to 10%.

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

She earned a Cambridge PhD in ethology in 1965.

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

Greenpeace does not accept money from governments, corporations or political parties.

The 1992 Earth Summit, which set up the UN climate convention, was held in which city?

Attended by 108 heads of state and government, it helped popularise the idea of sustainable development and produced the UNFCCC, whose COP meetings now happen every year.

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

Charles David Keeling's readings 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'?

His 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.