We're all Gonna Die presents: The Top 10 Environmental Disasters of All Time, brought to you by TIME

Someone at Time Inc. apparently really likes making top ten lists. (Side note: how do I get that job?) Happily (by which I mean horrifically), one that I stumbled upon yesterday seems ideal fodder for this blog, so I shall re-post it here as filler while I work on my next book recommendation.

Without further ado, let's explore the TOP 10 ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS....as of May 2010.*  (Okay, a little more ado...I do want to clarify, because Time does not, that these are the top 10 man-made disasters. So of course we should be extra terrified.)

1. Chernobyl: 1986 explosion of a nuclear power plant in Ukraine "that sent massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere, reportedly more than the fallout from Hiroshima and Nagasaki." (Side note: A recent episode of This American Life has some strikingly sad stories about the fallout from Chernobyl. (Pun intended?))
2. Bhopal: 1984 accident at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India that resulted in 45 tons of poisonous methyl isocyanate escaping from the facility, killing 15,000 and affecting more than half a million people.
   
3. Kuwaiti Oil Fires: In 1991, Saddam Hussein sent men to blow up Kuwaiti oil wells, and approximately 600 were set ablaze.  The resulting fires, "literally towering infernos," burned for seven months. Writes Time, "The Gulf was awash in poisonous smoke, soot and ash. Black rain fell. Lakes of oil were created."
   
4. Love Canal: In the 1940's and 1950's, a company near Niagara Falls, NY buried 1,000 tons of toxic industrial waste under the town of Love Canal. Subsequently, a town was unwittingly built on top of the waste dump, and "over the years, the waste began to bubble up into backyards and cellars." By 1978, the problem was so bad that hundreds of families had to sell their homes to the government and evacuate the area.
5. The Exxon Valdez: In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground Alaska's Prince William Sound, spilling 10.8 million gallons of oil into the water.  This disaster taught schoolchildren (like me at the time) that dish detergent could clean oil off animals. Also, oil spills are bad.
6. Tokaimura Nuclear Plant: 1999 nuclear accident in a facility northeast of Tokyo, Japan, which was the result of workers improperly mixing a uranium solution. I suspect that the newer Japanese nuclear explosion might top this one, but we may never know since Time has already made its "Top 10 environmental disasters" list.
7. The Aral Sea: In the 1960's, the Soviet Union ill-advisedly started piping water out of the Aral Sea. By 2010, the Aral had shrunk 90%, and, writes Time, "what was once a vibrant, fish-stocked lake is now a massive desert that produces salt and sandstorms that kill plant life and have negative effects on human and animal health for hundreds of miles around. Scores of large boats sit tilted in the sand — a tableau both sad and surreal." I hate to say it, but this kind of reminds me of what Easter Island did to itself...
8. Seveso Dioxin Cloud: 1976 explosion at an Italian chemical plant that released a giant cloud of dioxin that settled on the town of Seveso.  Writes Time, "First, animals began to die...One farmer saw his cat keel over, and when he went to pick up the body, the tail fell off. When authorities dug the cat up for examination two days later, said the farmer, all that was left was its skull." Today, there are giant underground tanks that "hold the remains of hundreds of slaughtered animals."
9. Minamata Disease: This is the one that terrifies me the most, possibly because of the coverage of the disease in The Cove, and partly because I think we are all contaminated with Mercury these days. Minamata Disease is the result of "industrial poisoning of Minamata Bay by the Chisso Corp.....As a result of wastewater pollution by the plastic manufacturer, large amounts of mercury and other heavy metals found their way into the fish and shellfish that comprised a large part of the local diet. Thousands of residents have slowly suffered over the decades and died from the disease." Mercury is BAD NEWS, people. Bad. News.
   
10. Three Mile Island: 1979 partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor near near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I think this one made Time's list only because it happened in America. To quote the listmaker, "The ironic thing is that while it has become known as one of America's worst nuclear accidents, nothing much really happened. No one died, and the facility itself is still going strong." Time, may I suggest you replace this with something more dire?

If you think this list of the top 10 environmental disasters is in the wrong order, Time invites you to create your own list of horrible tragedies. Fun for the whole family!

The Aral "Sea"

 *Full disclosure: I'm pretty sure Time magazine just picked ten (mostly) horrific disasters to talk about; there's certainly no guarantee that more horrible things haven't happened.