What have we done?

1984 – methyl isocyanate gas Release from Union Carbide, India people died that night, another died later - thousands more suffered kidney and liver problems, blindess - 26 years later the water is still unfit to drink

1989 – Exxon Valdez Oil spill, Alaska -11 million gallons of crude oil spilled km of shoreline affected -The ecosystem has not fully recovered

1995 – Acid Mine Tailings break dam Guyana

2000 – Cyanide spill in Danube and Tisza Rivers litres of cyanide Tainted water leaked from a Gold mine in Romania - 80% of river life was killed

2001 – Tanker Jessica, Oil spill Galapagos Islands

1986 – Chernobyl Nuclear Plant disaster, USSR -100x more radiation Released than the atomic Bombs dropped on Japan -A city of people is a ghost town

Amoco Cadiz oil tanker wrecked off the coast of France spilling 1.6 million barrels of oil in 1978 It took 10 years to fully remove all of the oil from shorelines

1952- London Smog Combo of smoke and fog, the air pollution in London from Dec – March 1953 was so bad that it killed people

April 2010 – Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill - Worst in American History

China has km of major rivers According to UN 80% no longer support fish

Great Pacific Garbage Patch Convergence of currents in the North Pacific Garbage (plastic) patch > size of Texas ~ 3.5 million tonnes

Don’t worry its not all bad… There are still millions of square kilometres of wilderness around the globe that remain relatively untouched by humans