FACTOIDS CONNECTED TO NATURE

by

Joe Baust

Population Particulars

* If earth’s history is compared to a calendar year: the modern human exists for about 37 minutes. 1/3rd of earth’s natural resources has been consumed in the last 0.2 seconds (by modern humans).

* World population is 215,000 people larger today than it was yesterday.

* Human consumption of Earth’s natural resources more than tripled between 1970 and 2015.

* Our use of natural resources is expected to continue to grow more than double from 2015 to 2050.

* The number of planet earths we need to sustain the growing human population  - 1.768 (now).

Paper

* Rainforests are being cut down at a rate of 100 acres per minute.

* In 2013 the average North American uses 700 lbs. of paper a year. This equals 465 trees per person, just for the paper.

* A cotton Shopping bag must be used at least 131 times to have less impact on the environment than single-use bags.

* 27,000 trees are felled each day for toilet paper.

Tales of Trash and Recycling

* Weight of trash in the ocean will surpass the weight of actual fish by the year 2050

* 40 percent of all bottled water sold in the world is bottled tap water.

* Twenty percent of new plastic was more expensive than recycled plastic in 2018 – 2020.

* Recycled plastics at now nineteen percent more expensive than new plastic.

* The average person ingest 5 grams of plastic per week.

* The slogan ‘a little green goes a long way;’ ...in fact many, come over 7,000 miles away.

    * Home Depot orange nylon tote (99 cents) – made in China.

    * Trader Joe’s polypropylene reusable bag (99 cents) is made in          Vietnam.

* It takes 25 recycled plastic bottles to make a brand new fleece jacket.

Other Factoids:

* There are two countries that are carbon-negative. 

* 7 states expected to lose the majority of their summer state-bird populations by 2050.

* ¾’s of the global ocean currents that have sped up since 1990.

    * 10 percent – the average percentage by which those currents           have accelerated.

Sources:

Harpers

Huffington Post

Greencyclopedia

Green Geeks

Lifetstyles Magazine

Plastic News

Quentin Fottrell – The Truth about reusable shopping bags

The World Counts

Photo Credit: Joe Baust