There are enough environmental facts and statistics
out there to make your eyes glaze over. So here is a gathering of
the
more interesting, and unfortunately disturbing, facts—sure to keep
your eyes wide open—sourced by Angela Starks from
the State of the World 2000 (a Worldwatch Institute Report, published
by W. W. Norton & Co.).
Every year, 6 million people die from hunger and malnutrition.
World water use has tripled over the last half-century, becoming scarcer
than land.
There is a huge and chronic water deficit in Northern China—they
over-pump about 30 billion cubic meters of ground water each year.
1.2 billion people in the world have no access to clean water.
During this century, CO2 concentration is projected to double pre-industrial
levels, in which case temperatures may increase by 1 to 4 degrees Celsius
(2 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit).
During the past two years alone, 70 percent of the coral in the Indian
Ocean has been destroyed by record sea surface temperatures.
At least 14 million hectares of rainforests are lost every year.
Up to two-thirds of Afghanistan’s arable land is out of use because
of land mines planted there since 1979.
There has been so much soil erosion in Kazakhstan that it has lost half
of its cropland since 1980.
Largely as a result of international travel and trade, exotic species
and organisms have crossed natural boundaries around the globe. Native
plants, animals and other life forms are suppressed, posing a serious
threat to the diversity of life on Earth, second only to habitat destruction.
One quarter of the world’s mammal species are now in danger of
extinction.
About 1,000 species of insects, weeds and plant diseases have now developed
resistance to chemicals designed to kill them.
Pesticide use caused the birth of a huge population of pesticide-resistant
sweet potato whiteflies in the 1980s. In South America, this fly has
now combined with various plant viruses to form a weird fly-virus combination
that has forced the abandonment of over a million hectares of cropland.
Worldwide pesticide use has increased 26-fold during the last 50 years.
The rate of increase has recently been declining, but many of the chemicals
are now 10 to 100 times more toxic than before.
U.S. companies are permitted to manufacture pesticides that are illegal
to use in this country and to sell them to developing countries. Many
of these pesticides come back to haunt Americans in the form of food
imports.
An expensive and hazardous waste disposal problem exists from the 100,000
tons of obsolete pesticides improperly stored in the developing world.
Many were shipped there by industrial nations looking for a cheap way
to get rid of them.
It is likely that everyone’s body contains measurable amounts
of about 500 potentially toxic chemicals that did not exist before
1920.
By the age of one year, most Americans may receive up to 12 percent
of their acceptable lifetime exposure to dioxins—industrial byproducts—primarily
because of chemicals in the animal fats eaten by their mothers.
Inuit women may carry up to 10 times as much PCB and chlordane in their
breast milk as women in Southern Canada, even though they are thousands
of kilometers from the nearest agricultural source. These highly durable
chemicals hitch-hike on wind and water, migrating from warmer to colder
climes. At the same time, they bioaccumulate up the food chain in fatty
tissues, which poses a particular health risk in the Inuit regions where
a lot of fatty fish is consumed.
Making computers requires a great deal of energy; a single semiconductor
plant may use as much electricity and water as a small city. The rapid
growth in the computer industry has also created a massive disposal
problem, especially since they become obsolete and are replaced frequently.
When computers are trashed, their content of lead, mercury, chromium,
arsenic and other substances become health hazards.
Laws covering recycling and eco-labeling may be targeted for elimination
by the World Trade Organization (WTO) which views them as barriers to
free trade.
And Finally—Some Good News
This is the point at which most news programs end with an amusing
report to buffer tales of disaster and corruption. Our version of this
is some positive environmental trends from around the world. In the
words of Lester R. Brown in State of the World 2000: "If the evidence
of a global environmental awakening were limited to only government
initiatives or a few corporate initiatives, it might be dubious. But
with the evidence of growing momentum coming on both fronts, the prospect
that we are approaching the threshold of major transformation becomes
more convincing. The question is, Will it happen soon enough?"
As climate change increases, so does the investment in technologies
that may help combat it. For example, wind power is now a $3 billion
industry, and a new solar economy has the potential to replace fossil
fuels.
The use of coal did not increase at all during the last decade, suggesting
that its role may be decreasing in contrast to the rise in more environmentally-friendly
energy sources.
A consortium of corporations are aiming to make Iceland the world’s
first hydropower-based economy. In Germany, Shell Oil Corporation has
already opened a hydrogen equivalent of a gasoline station.
The world’s wind energy potential is massive. Three U.S. states
alone—North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas—could supply the
entire nation’s energy needs if their wind power were harnessed.
Inner Mongolia’s wind could power the whole of China. Navarra,
in northern Spain, already gets 20 percent of its energy from wind.
Japan’s solar cell roofing technology has set the stage for rapid
growth in solar power. In 1998 the German government announced its
aim
of installing 100,000 of these rooftops.
Within a few years, the number of old nuclear power plants being closed
down will probably exceed the number of new ones coming on-line, initiating
a phasing-out of this hazardous technology.
In June 1999, President Estrada of the Philippines signed a national
ban on waste incineration, a historic first.
In response to public opinion, the U.S. Forest System has a management
policy based for the first time on ecology rather than economics, and,
among other measures, is imposing a moratorium on its road building
and is recognizing the need to reduce soil erosion.
The Bank of America has reduced its paper use by a massive 228 tons
a year simply by trimming the weight of the paper in its automated teller
machines.
Organic farming has increasingly expanded over the past decade, at a
rate of at least 20 percent annually.
The Internet has become an effective tool in environmental campaigns.
For example, a group of NGOs utilized emails and a website to help ratifications
of a global treaty to ban land mines, and in 1997 on-line activists
mobilized the successful Save Organic Standards campaign.
The first Olympic Games of the new millennium (Sydney, 2000) are being
dubbed ‘The Green Games’ and will utilize rooftop solar cells
to generate all the energy requirements of the Olympic Village. When
the games are over, the village will become a 1,500 residence solar-powered
suburb, eliminating 7,000 tons of carbon annually that otherwise would
have been produced by Sydney’s existing coal power system.
