Task 1: One important environmental issue is illustrated by the following item on Beethoven. He died over 170 years ago, and yet it is possible that his death was linked to heavy metal poisoning. Can you provide some information about other environmental issues that have become significant since Beethoven's time? Local issues: Air quality River quality Contaminated land Global issues: Climate change Resource scarcity Rainforest reduction.

Passion for fish may have rolled over Beethoven

The composer may have died from eating too much fish. Initial results from DNA tests on a lock of hair of Ludwig van Beethoven indicate a fatal build up of lead that could have come from his passion for pike and tench, which were caught in heavily polluted rivers. The cause of the composer's slow agonising death in Vienna in 1827 was officially recorded as dropsy, an inflammation of the liver. Lead was a common product of many factories on the banks of the Danube and Rhine in early 19th Century Austria, and so it is possible that thelead detected in his hair came from the fish, which would have accumulated heavy metals like lead. These heavy metals are also accumulated in man. The lead could also have come from paint and from local wines. Whatever the source the lead may have caused his deafness before finally killing him.