Environmental Issues in Europe

Acid Rain

Black Triangle Where Poland, Germany, & Czech meet. Factories in this area burn coal which causes acid rain.

Germany/Acid Rain Some of the most dramatic effects of acid rain on forests have been observed in Europe. A survey in Germany showed that 34 % of the country's total forest is damaged by air pollution. This included about one half of the famous Black Forest. Increasing damage to the centuries old architecture is unforgivable.

Great Britain Air Pollution London, England was the site of a dense smog caused by coal fires used to heat homes during the winter of 1952. The weather in London had been unusually cold for several weeks leading up to the event. Because of the cold weather, households were burning more coal than usual to keep warm. The smoke from approximately one million coal-fired stoves, in addition to the emissions from local industry, was released into the atmosphere to create the Great London Smog of 1952

London Smog 1952 The term smog simply describes fog that has soot in it. In the week beginning the 5th December 1952, thousands of Londoners died in the worst air pollution disaster on record. Nobody realized what was happening until it was noticed that the undertakers were running out of coffins and the florists out of flowers. Only later it was realized that the number of deaths during the days of the smog was three or four times normal. 1956 Clean Air Act the first air pollution law was passed as a result of the Smog of 1952 During the smog the death rate rose dramatically. The death rate peaked on the 8th and 9th, at 900 per day. The accepted figure is that the London smog killed around 4000 people. However they count only the deaths during and for two weeks after the smog. There was a second peak in deaths and these delayed deaths add an extra 8000, bringing the total number of people the smog killed up to 12,000.

Water Pollution/ Tisza-Danube Spill Hungary’s Tisza River and Yugoslavia’s Danube River, which is Europe’s largest waterway, were each catastrophically polluted Jan. 30, 2000. The toxic spill of cyanide from a gold mine eventually reached the Black Sea and affected Romania and Hungary. We are all down stream from somewhere! Mayflies breed in the river every June.

Hungary/Danube River Water Pollution A caustic red slug was released near Budapest, after a reservoir burst at an aluminum refining plant. The flood left four people dead, and injured more than 100 . Rescue crews rushed to the scene to try to help the victims and contain the slug before it reached the Danube, a major European waterway. October 2010