In January 1990, four oil spills occured in New York’s Arthur Kill and Kill Van Kull waterways, popularizing the heavily traversed channel.
Beginning in 1980, economic development and industrialization in Chongqing, China, has caused the energy production and consumption of coal products to rapidly increase. At the same time, pollution was on the rise.
The invention of the spinning jenny in 1764 sparked a movement that would change the lives of people worldwide: the rapid mechanization of the textile industry spurred a period of economic growth.
The principle of the division of labour and the use of machines appeared in the 18th century in England. These developments initiated the Industrial Revolution.
This is a chapter of the virtual exhibition “Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands”—written and curated by historian Nina Möllers.
Together with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, the Deutsches Museum hosted a major special exhibition on the Anthropocene from December 2014 – September 2016, which was curated by Nina Möllers. Coined by the atmospheric chemist and Nobel Prize laureate Paul J. Crutzen, the term “Anthropocene” describes the idea of a new geological era shaped by deep interventions into nature by humans as biological and geological agents.
Nina Möllers
In State of the World 2008: Innovations for a Sustainable Economy, researchers with the Worldwatch Institute and other leading experts highlight an array of economic innovations that offer new opportunities for long-term prosperity.
State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future examines changes in the ways cities are managed, built, and lived in that could tip the balance towards a healthier and more peaceful urban future.
State of the World 2006 provides a special focus on China and India and their impact on the world as major consumers of resources and polluters of local and global ecosystems.
Energy must be seen in interaction with transportation and industry in order for its role in South-Central Africa to be fully understood. This article traces the history of energy, industrialization, and transportation from the pre-colonial through the colonial period.
The Bhopal chemical disaster on 3 December 1984 was the most tragic chemical disaster in history. Over 500,000 people were exposed to the toxic gas methyl isocyanate leaking from the tanks at Union Carbide Corporation’s (UCC) pesticide plant, many of whom died instantly or of the consequences. People living in the Bhopal area still suffer from toxic water and ground contamination today ; there is a very high number of aborts and disabled children. The company responsible for the incident never took full responsibility.
