Why this word is great
ECOCATASTROPHE — [Noun] A large-scale, anthropogenic disaster inflicting severe, irreversible devastation upon an ecosystem. Its etymology builds a grim logic: from the combining form eco- (from Greek oikos, meaning "house, environment") + catastrophe (from Greek katastrophē, meaning "overturning, sudden turn, disaster"). Unlike "ecocide," which implies a prosecutable crime of destruction, or "environmental degradation," which suggests a gradual, corrosive decay, an ecocatastrophe denotes the acute and terminal overturning of a world. It is the silent, poisoned river valley after a chemical spill; the blackened geometry of a forest burned to mineral ash; the eerie quiet of a dead coral reef, its bleached bones stretching to a warming horizon—the dreadful moment when the house, so patiently built by time, is violently and finally upended.