What Was the Most Significant Environmental Catastrophe of All Time?
A big question
Donald Worster, environmental historian
The worst environmental catastrophe in Earth’s history occurred 66 million years ago, when an asteroid struck, killing an estimated 70 percent of all species. Nothing humans have done compares. But the 1930s Dust Bowl was the worst catastrophe in America’s history, and such a phenomenon may become global as the world’s climate changes.
John McNeill, history professor, Georgetown
