The Human Environment Trivia Quiz

Answer: Running aground

Over 10 million US gallons (37,000 tonnes) of crude oil were spilled in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The practice was to leave the traffic lane to avoid small icebergs that calved from the Columbia Glacier. This was done just before midnight and they hit Bligh Reef some 17 minutes later. Eight of the eleven cargo holds were punctured.

Various factors contributed to the accident including the Raytheon Collision Avoidance System not working. In fact Exxon management knew that it had not been working for more than a year. Perhaps it was too expensive to fix. The remoteness of the site meant it was difficult to react quickly and the clean up process caused additional harm. Immediate wildlife losses included up to 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 247 bald eagles and 22 orcas.

Court actions followed and punitive damages eventually came down from $5bn to $500m. JP Morgan & Co. provided the $5bn credit line for Exxon and in the process created the first modern credit default swap to spread the financial risk to itself. The tanker was repaired at a cost of $30m, had five name changes and three changes of ownership before being broken up for scrap in 2012.

Answer: Palm oil

World consumption of vegetable oils in the 50 years since 1970 has gone from 2 million to 80 million tonnes per year with oil palm now accounting for about 40% of this. This is mainly because it is highly efficient, producing up to 20 times the amount of oil per hectare (acre) as other oil crops or, to put it another way, on 6% of the land used for oil crops. It is a tropical plant and nearly 85% of the world's supply comes from Malaysia and Indonesia in 2021. A significant percentage of that has come from cleared tropical forests.

Humans have been using slash and burn techniques for millennia as a way of clearing land for agricultural use. Crops are grown, the soil nutrients depleted and the cycle begins again. It has changed the shape of the land. The annual 'wild' fires and associated air pollution are a serious problem both for the native plants and animals as well as the people of the land. On a longer timescale, the weather patterns are changing as well. Tropical forests create the conditions for their own rainfall. With forestry clearance, most of the evapotranspiration from trees disappears meaning lower levels of humidity locally and, as is being seen in the Amazon basin, more frequent drought conditions. A lower humidity environment potentially leads to more natural wild fires, reinforcing the problem.

Answer: Toxic waste dumping

Named after the developer, it was to be a preplanned community. A canal linking Lake Ontario and Lake Erie became part of this but money problems meant only 1.6 km (1 mi) of the canal was dug. It became a municipal waste dump, was then bought by Hooker Chemical Company in the 1940s and used as a landfill dump for waste chemicals. This ceased in 1952 when plans to build a school on it became apparent.

The school and housing construction process damaged the clay seal on the landfill, releasing chemicals into the soil. It was not until the late 1970s that site investigation took place although complaints and health issues had been going on for years. Site remediation took over 21 years, including re-burying the most toxic areas.

The Love Canal site (now renamed Black Creek Village) along with those at Times Beach, Missouri and the Valley of the Drums, Kentucky encouraged the passing of CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980), which established a producer-pays remediation scheme called the Superfund. Over 1,000 sites across the US remain on the list.

Answer: Deliberately set on fire

The nine-month Hocking Valley Coal Strike started during 1884. The strike turned violent and during October some strikers set light to wood-loaded mining carts and pushed them into several of the mines around New Straitsville. Unnoticed at the time, the coal seams caught fire. Attempts to put out the fires mostly failed. Efforts included trying to cut off airflow by bricking up tunnels or flooding tunnels with water.

In the end the coal mining companies resorted to trying to mine out the coal ahead of the fires. By 1936 the coal had been burnt out in some 93 sq km (36 sq mi).

The ground collapsed under buildings and roads, areas stayed snow-free in winter and tourists paid 25 cents to see eggs cooked over fire holes, amongst other effects.

Answer: Water

A runaway exothermic reaction in a methyl isocyanate storage tank at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal was started by water getting into the tank. Since much of the tank's safety systems were not working or were inadequate, this resulted in a toxic gas release which caused perhaps as many as 16,000 deaths and over half a million injuries.

Court action followed with the arguments mostly over whether it was corporate negligence or, as alleged by Union Carbide, worker sabotage. No-one was able to demonstrate how water could be made to enter the tank in subsequent tests. The American CEO was allowed to leave India, there were financial settlements and some Indian employees were given jail sentences. Legislation followed in India and the US.

Answer: Rain

This was one of seven tips placed above Aberfan mining village, which had a population of 5,000. Three of the tips were built on top of springs or streams and some minor slips had already occurred. Heavier than normal rain that year resulted in liquefaction. Water-saturated material broke away and some 110,000 cubic metres (140,000 cubic yards) flowed down the mountain. It solidified again when it came to a stop.

After the inquiry, when the National Coal Board (NCB) as colliery owner was reluctant to accept responsibility, the village residents had to press hard to have the remaining tips removed with cost being the main issue. Legislation regulating tip management was passed in 1969.

Answer: Ploughing the land

The semi-arid High Plains are scoured by winds and known for their extended drought years. The minimal rainfall supported a grasslands ecosystem with deep-rooted grasses holding the soil together during the regular winds. In the latter half of the 19th century the federal government encouraged agricultural development in the region and waves of migrants followed. Cattle ranching gave way to the plough after a combination of overgrazing, drought and harsh winters turned landowners to cultivation.

The extensive deep ploughing which followed unfortunately undermined the deep-rooted grasses of the plains, exposing the soil to erosion by the high winds. Stubble burning and leaving fields bare over winter didn't help. Successive droughts during the 1930s saw this erosion producing dust storms ultimately affecting 100 million acres (400,000 sq km) and in places blowing away over 75% of the topsoil by the end of the decade. This caused great economic hardship and an exodus of some 3.5 million people from the Plains states during the decade.

Answer: Cotton

The Aral Sea was an endorheic lake, meaning that it had no outlet. Over the course of 50 years starting in the 1960s, it has mostly dried up. The biggest remnant is now called the North Aral Sea and what was the eastern basin is now the Aralkum Desert.

The main reason for the change was the diversion of Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers by the Soviet Union to provide irrigation water for cotton farming. Droughts didn't help and poor irrigation practices meant that there was excessive evaporation and seepage, meaning more demand on the water resource. Focussing on cotton agriculture with its high water requirements was also a poor choice.

As the water levels shrank, salinity went up and fertiliser run-off led to increased contamination of the remaining waters with detrimental effects on wildlife and fishing communities. Efforts are being made to preserve what is left and to remedy this situation.

Answer: The ecosystem has changed

From the 1950s new catch technology allowed much greater catches of cod to be landed and from much larger and deeper areas than before. Commercially unimportant bycatch also removed food sources for the cod, affecting the recovery rate of the fisheries.

Understanding what was happening in the fisheries was one of the problems. For example, increased catches were interpreted as signs of increased stocks rather than due to improved efficiency in catching the fish. Decreased fish mortality following the banning of foreign fishing vessels was interpreted as signs of recovery rather than reduced fish catching capacity, so this led to an increase in catch quotas. Over 35,000 people lost their livelihoods as a result of the fisheries collapse.

The collapse unbalanced the ecosystem. Species that were kept in check by cod predation or competition for resources have flourished. Crabs, shrimp and sea urchins have benefitted as have forage fish, such as capelin, which are normally eaten by cod. The oversized capelin population now opportunistically preys on hatchling cod and cods' roe. Targeting the larger cod has skewed the gene pool, resulting in smaller adults producing fewer eggs and being less successful in replacing the population. Recovery is proving to be slow.

Answer: Creating a heat island effect

Mankind has increasingly moved to cities and, in doing so, has created the urban heat island (UHI). Cities have changed the environment with a high density of heat-absorbing buildings, roads, pavements and parking areas in a localised area. These materials absorb more solar radiation than surrounding suburban and rural areas. This is often coupled with reduced areas of vegetation which decrease the potential for evaporative cooling. There is also more waste heat produced by the higher concentration of people and air pollution tends to worsen the effect.

The result can be an urban heat island where the city is significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas, particularly when wind speed is low or there is a settled period of weather. UHI typically increases the rainfall downwind of the city, lessens the frequency of weak tornadoes and has a detrimental effect on biodiversity as warmer water runoff stresses ecosystems.