trivia

Double-click on any word and see its definition from Cambridge Dictionaries Online.

History
Air pollution was common in large towns long before the industrial revolution. The pollution came from dust, wood smoke, tanneries, animal manure and other things.
Water pollution was less severe in some civilizations. Israeli and Hindu cities tended to have less water pollution due to strict religious codes about cleanliness. On the other hand, ancient Rome was notorious for sewage-filled streets.
Timbering stripped the forests of Babylon, Greece, Phonecia (Lebanon) and Italy with the rise of civilization. The wood energy crisis led Greeks to use passive solar energy by orienting their cities and houses toward the sun. Romans made some use of solar energy but imported wood for timber and fuel from as far away as the Black Sea. Both Greeks and Romans kept sacred groves of trees from being timbered.
Soil conservation was not widely practiced in the Mediterranian, but cultures in China, India and Peru understood the long term impact of soil erosion and tried to prevent it.
Lead poisoning was common among upper class Romans who used lead-sweetened wine and grape pulp sweetened with "sugar of lead" as a condiment.
Source: Environmental History Timeline

Person
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862; born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, pacifist, tax resister and philosopher who is famous for Walden, on simple living amongst nature, and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, on resistance to civil government and many other articles and essays. He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
Source: Wikipedia

Film
A Civil Action (1998): directed and written by Steven Zaillian and starring John Travolta and Rober Duvall. Tagline: Justice has its price. Plot Outline: The families of children who died sue two companies for dumping toxic waste: a tort so expensive to prove, the case could bankrupt their lawyer.
Source: IMDb

Numbers
It is estimated that three million people indirectly die of respiratory and cardiovascular disease worldwide, many of which cases are linked to air quality and smog. Many of these mortalities are largely attributable to indoor air pollution. In the U.S. between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths per year are linked to air pollution, which exceeds the number deaths caused by automobile accidents. Research published in 2005 suggests that 310,000 Europeans die from air pollution annually. Direct causes of air pollution related deaths include aggravated asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, lung and heart diseases, and other respiratory allergies. The US EPA estimates that a proposed set of changes in diesel engine technology (Tier 2) could result in 12,000 fewer premature mortalities, 15,000 fewer heart attacks, 6000 fewer emergency room visits by children with asthma, and 8900 fewer respiratory-related hospital admissions each year in the United States.
Source: Wikipedia

Thing
Synroc (a portmanteau from "Synthetic rock") is a possible means of safely storing and disposing of radioactive waste. It was invented in 1978 by Ted Ringwood at the Australian National University, with further research being undertaken in collaboration with ANSTO. Unlike borosilicate glass, which is amorphous, Synroc is a ceramic which incorporates the radioactive waste into its crystal structure. Although it has not yet experienced commercial use, in April of 2005, the process was chosen for a multimillion dollar "demonstration" contract to eliminate five tonnes of plutonium-contaminated waste at British Nuclear Fuel's Sellafield plant, on the northwest coast of England.
Source: Wikipedia

Songs
Heal the World by Michael Jackson
See lyrics
Environmental protest songs
Source: Wikipedia

Recipe
Earth cake
See recipe

Wordplay
Environmental disaster is an anagram of Never mind as it's not real
Pollution of our seas is an anagram of Foul, poisonous alert
Global Warming is an anagram of Ball going warm
Source: Anagram Genius

Literature
Stark is a 1989 novel written by Ben Elton. The book deals with the adventures of CD Dobson, an environmentalist living in a near-future world in which the environmental damage Mankind is causing to the Earth is apparently reaching critical levels. Dobson and friend Rachel become embroiled in the titular Stark conspiracy; a cabal of Earth's richest and most influential men has long been aware that the planet's entire ecosystem is approaching total collapse. Seeking to save their own lives, they secretly created a fleet of spacecraft with the intention of founding a colony on the Moon.
Source: Wikipedia

Records
The worst short term civilian air pollution event from pollution in India was the 1984 Bhopal Disaster. Leaked industrial vapors killed more than 2000 people outright and injured anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000 others, some 6000 of whom would later die from their injuries. The United Kingdom suffered its worst air pollution event when the December 4th Great Smog of 1952 formed over London. In six days more than 4000 died, and 8000 more died within the following months. An accidental leak of anthrax spores from a biological warfare laboratory in the former USSR in 1979 near Sverdlovsk is believed to have been the cause of hundreds of civilian deaths. The worst single incident of air pollution to occur in the United States of America occurred in Donora, Pennsylvania in late October, 1948, when 20 people died and over 7000 were injured.
Source: Wikipedia