Sacred Earth Articles
5 Shocking Facts About Water Scarcity
5 shocking facts about water scarcity that will make you cry a river
For most of us, water scarcity and water poverty probably aren’t high on our list of things that we regularly think about or take action on (but if they are, good on ya), what with all of our attention being pulled every which way by the news story or Facebook meme or funny video of the day, but those water issues directly affect hundreds of millions of people every day of their life. Most of us probably have no problem when we want or need water, anytime of day or night, as safe clean water flows right out of our taps with virtually no effort on our part, and we can use it for for drinking, for washing, for watering the garden, at a very low cost to us. But in many parts of the world, getting enough water to drink everyday may mean walking miles to fetch it, which directly impacts the lives of those people especially women and children, who are primarily responsible for water collection in developing countries), because it not only takes a huge amount of time (estimated 200 million hours each day, globally), but also takes a physical toll, as the water is often transported on their backs. coque iphone 2019 soldes To help raise awareness of these very real water issues on World Water Day 2014 (March 22nd), here are five shocking facts about water scarcity. 1. Almost 800 million people lack access to clean safe water every day. That’s more than two and a half times the population of the United States, where most of us probably waste more water before noon than those people use in a month. 2. Almost 3 ½ million people die every year because of water and sanitation and hygiene-related causes, and almost all of them (99%) are in the developing world. coque iphone pas cher That’s like the population of a city the size of Los Angeles being wiped out each year. 3. coque iphone pas cher Every 21 seconds, another child dies from a water-related illness. coque iphone 2019 pas cher Diarrhea, something we don’t really consider to be dangerous in the developed world, is actually incredibly deadly, and is the second leading global cause of death for kids under five. 4. More than 1 billion people still practice open defecation every day. In fact, more people have a mobile phone than a toilet. Open defecation is just what it sounds like, which is squatting wherever you can and pooping right on the ground, which can not only pollute the immediate area, but can also contaminate community water supplies. Sanitation and clean water go hand in hand. 5. coque iphone soldes The average American, taking a 5 minute shower, uses more water than an average person in the slums of a developing country does in a whole day. And to be honest, it seems like a 5 minute shower is probably on the short side for many people, so that’s as if we used our entire day’s water ration, just to wash our body. Water poverty and its related issues affect the health, wealth, education, and wellbeing of all of those who live with it every day, so supporting clean water initiatives can make a big difference for many of our fellow Earthlings. But that doesn’t always have to be in the form of a monetary donation to a water charity or nonprofit (although those are certainly welcome). coque iphone 6 Support for water issues can be as diverse as being an outspoken advocate and sharing water stories via social media, or educating our children about the issues, or volunteering for a water advocacy group. If you’re a smartphone user, this water charity initiative dares you to not touch your phone for 10 minutes to fund a day of water, and this one, asks Instagram users to upload and donate a photo of “your water day” (and tag it with #waterday) via the Donate A Photo app to get $1 donated to Water.org from Johnson & Johnson. The theme of this year’s World Water Day is Water and Energy, because those two issues are not only closely interlinked, but also interdependent, and addressing them both is the only way forward.
On Design: The Hannover Principles
From the 20th anniversary printing—
November 2012
As an architect and designer, I am someone who spends time thinking about how we can imagine a future of abundance for our children. In 1991, at the suggestion of Dr. Michael Braungart, I was commissioned by the City of Hannover, Germany, to craft sustainable design principles for Expo 2000, The World’s Fair. The result was The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability, which was officially presented by Hannover as a gift to the 1992 Earth Summit’s World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
If design is the first signal of human intention, our intention today can be to love all ten billion people who will live on our planet by 2050. We can do this. If we imagine and embrace our cities as part of the same organism as the countryside, the rivers and the oceans, then we can celebrate ourselves, all species and the natural systems we support and that support us. This is our design assignment. If we are principled and have positive goals, we can rise to this occasion. It will take us all; it will take forever—that is the point.
—William McDonough
THE HANNOVER PRINCIPLES
-
Insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.
-
Recognize interdependence. The elements of human design interact with and depend upon the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognizing even distant effects.
-
Respect relationships between spirit and matter. Consider all aspects of human settlement including community, dwelling, industry and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.
-
Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems and their right to co-exist.
-
Create safe objects of long-term value. Do not burden future generations with requirements for maintenance or vigilant administration of potential danger due to the careless creation of products, processes or standards.
-
Eliminate the concept of waste. Evaluate and optimize the full life-cycle of products and processes, to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.
-
Rely on natural energy flows. Human designs should, like the living world, derive their creative forces from perpetual solar income. Incorporate this energy efficiently and safely for responsible use.
-
Understand the limitations of design. No human creation lasts forever and design does not solve all problems. Those who create and plan should practice humility in the face of nature. Treat nature as a model and mentor, not as an inconvenience to be evaded or controlled.
-
Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge. Encourage direct and open communication between colleagues, patrons, manufacturers and users to link long term sustainable considerations with ethical responsibility, and re-establish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activity.
The Hannover Principles should be seen as a living document committed to the transformation and growth in the understanding of our interdependence with nature, so that they may adapt as our knowledge of the world evolves.
From the 2002 10th Anniversary Edition—
INTRODUCTION, by Teresa Heinz
I first became aware of William McDonough’s work in 1984, when he redesigned the national headquarters of the Environmental Defense Fund. The redesign of the EDF office was a watershed event. Not only was it the first “green” office in New York City, it also laid the foundation for a new design philosophy: a commercially productive, socially beneficial and ecologically intelligent approach to the making of things that Bill and his colleague Michael Braungart would come to call eco-effectiveness.
When I hired Bill to design the Heinz family offices and Heinz Foundation offices in Pittsburgh in 1991, he and Michael had just been commissioned by the City of Hannover to develop a set of design principles for the 2000 World’s Fair. Having chosen “Humanity, Nature and Technology” as the theme of the fair, the city wanted to showcase hopeful visions for a sustainable future. The Hannover Principles were to put forth an inspiring standard, presenting to the world the first coherent framework for rethinking design through the lens of sustainability.
Getting to know Bill and Michael as colleagues and friends over the last ten years has given me the opportunity to see firsthand the impact of the Hannover Principles. From their elegant insistence on “the rights of humanity and nature to co-exist” to their call to “eliminate the concept of waste,” the Principles echo the deep human instinct—and wisdom—to care for the world. Indeed, they have become a cultural touchstone, providing information and grounding not just for the design community but also for all those devoted to bringing forth a world of social equity, environmental health and peaceful prosperity.
At their core is a simple truth: Human health, the strength of our economy and the well-being of our environment are all connected. I learned this lesson early in life, as a child growing up in Mozambique. In the East Africa of my youth, the interplay of nature, health and survival was a given, something that people who lived close to the natural world intuitively understood. For me, that understanding was reinforced by having a father who was a doctor. Observing him and the questions he asked of his patients taught me how illness can be related to environment and the practices of daily life.
We lived in a place where nature’s laws of cause and effect were fairly clear. If you went swimming at sunrise or sunset, feeding time for sharks and river crocodiles (and indeed, for all the animals in the savannah), you might get a nasty nibble. We learned to respect the rules of the natural world because they had such obvious implications for people’s personal well-being. Nature taught us the virtues of prevention—of solving problems by not creating them in the first place.
Industrialized societies tend to be less in touch with nature’s rules. In the nineteenth century, the paradigm was that we should tame nature; in the twentieth, it became a sense that we are almost immune to its rules. Today, we tend to think of the natural world as somehow separate, an entity “out there” that can be controlled, held at bay or even ignored. Even our efforts to protect the environment have been informed by this “us versus it” mentality, a sense that we are in competition with the natural world and that the best we can hope for is to mitigate the damage we cause.
The simple genius behind the nine Hannover Principles was that they reframed the issue. Rather than take a certain amount of ecological harm as a given, with people on various sides of the environmental debate reduced to arguing over the permissible amount, Bill and Michael invited us to consider an alternative. Why not just design products and institutions that support the environment, they asked?
The Hannover Principles were the first expression of that transforming idea. In nine lean declarations they set forth a value system and a design framework that Bill and Michael continue to use as the foundation of their evolving design paradigm. As they write in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, nature’s cycles are not just lean and efficient; they are abundant, effective and regenerative. By going beyond mere efficiency to celebrate the abundance of nature, the practice of eco-effective, cradle-to-cradle design allows us to create materials, dwellings, workplaces, and commercial enterprises that generate not fewer negative impacts but more productivity, more pleasure and more restorative effects.
The key insight of eco-effective or cradle-to-cradle thinking is recognizing the materials of our daily lives—even highly technical, synthetic industrial materials—as nutrients that can be designed to circulate in human systems very much like nitrogen, water, and simple sugars circulate in nature’s nutrient cycles. Rather than using materials once and sending them to the landfill—our current cradle-to-grave system—cradle-to-cradle materials are designed to be returned safely to the soil or to flow back to industry to be used again and again.
Far more than a theoretical notion, this central principle of sustainability can be readily seen in the work of Bill’s architectural firm, William McDonough + Partners, and Bill and Michael’s industrial design consultancy, McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry. Working with clients ranging from small companies like the Swiss textile mill Rohner to global megacorporations like the Ford Motor Company, both firms are showing that designers attuned to this cradle-to-cradle philosophy can replicate nature’s closed-loop systems in the worlds of commerce and community. The result: safe, beneficial materials that either naturally biodegrade or provide high-quality resources for the next generation of products; buildings designed to produce more energy than they consume; cities and towns tapped into local energy flows; places in every human realm that renew a sense of participation in the landscape.
My own hopes for the urban landscapes of Pittsburgh brought The Hannover Principles home, literally. At the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, where the Principles were introduced to the international community, I invited Bill and Michael to come to Pittsburgh to share their ideas. Both were invited to lecture at Carnegie Mellon University and, as I had hoped, the Hannover Principles became a part of the dialogue going on in Pittsburgh at the time about the region’s environmental future.
Today, Pittsburgh is gaining national recognition as a leader in green building and sustainable design. In many ways, that began with the building of the Heinz family offices, which represented the first, commercial-scale use of sustainably harvested tropical wood. Our offices served as a laboratory and model for others to learn from, and not just locally. The Discovery Channel covered it; architectural magazines wrote about it; and builders, designers and architects from across the country came to study its features. Since then, the ideas articulated in the Hannover Principles have never been far from the minds of the staff at The Heinz Endowments as they have advanced our green building agenda in Pittsburgh over the past decade.
Those ideas are making communities from Pittsburgh to Chicago and from Shanghai to Barcelona better places to live. They are helping people create buildings and landscapes where natural processes unfold with renewed vitality. They are transforming product design and shaping the work of such influential companies and institutions as Ford, Nike, BASF, the University of California, the Woods Hole Research Center and Oberlin College. As more and more companies and institutions adopt these sustaining principles, there is also the chance that the global economy as a whole will begin to find robust health and long-term strength through the practice of intelligent design.
Ultimately, that is the enduring value of The Hannover Principles and the reason why this tenth anniversary edition is as fresh and necessary as ever. The Principles urge us to start seeing ourselves as part of the natural world and to replicate the joyful, productive and intelligent practice of life itself.
Find the original 1992 edition here— Hannover Principles 1992
Climate Engineering a Good Idea?
Climate Engineering No Longer Pie in the Sky
Scientists backed by the government and Bill Gates are studying schemes such as sunlight-blocking particles
This rendering [to the right] shows a cloud-brightening scheme by scientist John Latham in which a ship sprays salt particles into the air to reflect sunlight and slow global warming. (John MacNeil)
WASHINGTON — As international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions stall, schemes to slow global warming using fantastical technologies once dismissed as a sideshow are getting serious consideration in Washington.
Ships that spew salt into the air to block sunlight. Mirrored satellites designed to bounce solar rays back into space. Massive “reverse” power plants that would suck carbon from the atmosphere. These are among the ideas the National Academy of Sciences has charged a panel of some of the nation’s top climate thinkers to investigate. Several agencies requested the inquiry, including the CIA. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, scientists are modeling what such technologies might do to weather patterns. At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., a fund created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates — an enthusiast of research into climate engineering — helps bankroll another such effort. “There is a level of seriousness about these strategies that didn’t exist a decade ago, when it was considered just a game,” said Ken Caldeira, a scientist with the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, who sits on the National Academy of Sciences panel. “Attitudes have changed dramatically.”
Even as the research moves forward, many scientists and government officials worry about the risks of massive climate-control contraptions. Some fear the potential for error in tampering with the world’s thermostat. Get it wrong, they say, and the consequences could be disastrous. Many also say the public could develop a false hope that geo-engineering schemes alone could halt climate change. That, they worry, would undermine already tenuous support for efforts to seriously reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to warming the climate. Even so, once-skeptical federal officials and scientists at major research institutions including Stanford, Harvard and Caltech have decided that ignoring these largely untested technologies also poses dangers. “There has been so little movement globally and, particularly, nationally toward mitigation of climate change that we’re in a situation where we need to know what the prospects are for this,” said Marcia McNutt, a former director of the U.S. Geological Survey, who is chairwoman of the National Academy of Sciences panel. “Whether we wind up using these technologies, or someone else does and we suddenly find ourselves in a geo-engineered world, we have to better understand the impacts and the consequences,” she said.
Agencies are struggling to analyze the possibilities of weather control and how it might be policed. In November, the Congressional Research Service advised lawmakers to pay attention to the issue, saying “these new technologies may become available to foreign governments and entities in the private sector to use unilaterally — without authorization from the United States government or an international treaty.” That already happened to a limited extent in mid-2012 when a California businessman, Russ George, dumped 200,000 pounds of iron-rich dust off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, in an effort — many say publicity stunt — aimed at spurring a massive plankton bloom. The theory of ocean fertilization holds that more plankton would increase the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. George’s test did appear to cause more plankton to bloom, but it is unclear whether it had any effect on carbon dioxide levels in the air.
That same year, British scientists canceled plans to test the effect that spraying liquids at high altitude would have on sunlight. The proposed small-scale test involved launching a balloon high above the sea and spraying what would have amounted to a couple of bathtubs of water into the atmosphere. In theory, that would mimic the cooling effect that occurs when ash from a volcanic eruption blocks sunlight. The experiment was grounded amid a heated dispute, which continues today, over whether field tests should be taking place at all in the absence of international rules guiding how to go about them. Some prominent climate experts have argued that the technology the British scientists were testing, were it ever to be used on a large scale, could exacerbate extreme drought and flooding in parts of the world. “We need to consider whether we have the right legal architecture in place to make sure bad things don’t happen,” said Harvard law professor Jody Freeman, a former White House counselor for energy and climate change. “It is important we have some control and society is engaged in the risks.”
The technologies being proposed are numerous, and often odd.
“I have seen all kinds of proposals,” said James Fleming, author of “Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control” and a member of the National Academy geo-engineering committee. “There is a crazy new one in my email every week,” he said. “There are a lot of Rube Goldbergs out there, and some Dr. Strangeloves.” Of the technologies being considered, those that would remove carbon tend to be less controversial. Riley Duren, chief systems engineer for Earth science and technology at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, estimates, for example, that counteracting today’s emissions would require about 30,000 of what he calls reverse power plants: enormous steel structures developed by a start-up in Calgary, Canada, that would use fans to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. The bids to redirect sunlight are much more economical and could be deployed more quickly. They also carry much more risk, the congressional research study warns. Proposals in that category include efforts at cloud whitening, in which planes or ships would shoot particles of sea salt into the sky, stimulating the formation of brighter clouds that would reflect sunlight. Other proposals would inject sulfates into the atmosphere to absorb heat, or bounce solar radiation back into space.
In addition to the danger of exacerbating drought, the congressional report warns, if such contraptions malfunctioned or were otherwise shut down, the climate could rapidly warm, “leaving little time for humans or nature to adapt.”
The authors echo the concerns of many scientists that small changes in climate over the history of Earth have been known to have severe consequences. Much of the momentum behind geo-engineering comes from an organization Gates created with Caldeira and Harvard professor David Keith. The two scientists have been getting $1.3 million annually from Gates to fund their research, as well as to distribute to other projects, such as the modeling being done at Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Caldeira said. They also hold cram sessions for the billionaire a few times each year on climate and energy issues, including geo-engineering. Caldeira and Keith hope the National Academy effort will open the way for government-sponsored field tests. But McNutt cautions that may not happen. John Latham won’t be staying idle waiting for the government to resolve that debate. A senior research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., Latham is confident that he and his partners have developed a viable contraption. Their cloud-brightening scheme would involve ships at sea unleashing a spray of salt particles. It would use nozzles designed by Armand Neukermans, a physicist who helped invent the inkjet printer while at Hewlett-Packard. As recently as last year, the group had little hope of securing enough money to test the contraption outside the lab, Latham said. But as the buzz around geo-engineering has intensified, some wealthy individuals have stepped forward with about $1 million needed for a small-scale trial. Latham anticipates that within two or three years he will be conducting a government-sanctioned field test over thousands of acres of ocean. “People are getting more and more desperate about climate change,” he said. “I think it is quite probable we will get the OK to do this.”
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-climate-engineering-20140305,0,3602250.story#ixzz2v9DeDWlU
My Inspirational Visit – Shasta Abbey
T.B. Fairbanks, Yahoo Contributor Network
Shasta Abbey located at Mt. Shasta, California, is a Soto Zen Buddhist Monastery where I had my inspirational experience that has changed my life. I have been self-studying Buddhism for about 11 years before coming to Mt. Shasta. I was first introduced to Buddhism while in my senior year in high school when we read Siddhartha. I was interested in discovering whether it was possible for one to alleviate suffering in their life and live an existence full of compassion and loving kindness towards others. I did not set a definite course of path to take to Buddhism; I read books by various monks and nuns from a wide-range of sects. I wanted my journey to be all inclusive, so I would take what I liked from H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama, Thich Naht Hahn, Nishitani Keiji, and Aung San Suu Kyi, to name a few. I took vows of refuge in the Tibetan tradition at Columbus KTC Columbus, OH from Lama Kathy Wesley back in March of 2006. My time at the center although brief made me feel as if my choice in Buddhism was the correct one for me and how I wanted to view the world. Whatever was spoken about that I could not quite wrap my head around; I would discard it, because from my viewpoint, as long as I do not hurt another sentient being and I strive to do well, I’m on the right track. That all changed once I discovered Mt. Shasta.
I needed to get away for a bit and reassess my life and figure out a way to deal with the stresses of my life through my spirituality. I searched on line using “Buddhist retreats” as my keywords. I found many, but the reason why I chose Mt. Shasta was because of the fact that they did not charge for participating in their retreats! I was amazed to say the least. The reason for this was that the monks of Mt. Shasta practice and believe in the spirit of Dana-giving and receiving which underlies the true spirit of generosity. I applied on line to go to one of their beginner’s retreat and I was set to go at the end of February.
I took a long bus trip from Albuquerque, NM to Weed, CA were one of the monks came to the visitor’s center in town to pick up myself and a couple of retreatants who happened to be on the bus. The retreat was for 3 days, we stayed at the Abbey’s guest house, had meals together with the guest master and lay residence who were living at the Abbey and participated in assisting monks various activities from helping in the kitchen to preparing meals generously donated by the community (Dana), helping in the guest house, or work in the temple. Our days began at 4:30 a.m. and ended around 7:30 p.m. We had our days planned after the 5 a.m. meditation period, which included the aforementioned activities. Retreats are open to all who earnestly want to learn about the Abbey and the work of the monks.
After the retreat, I decided to stay 9 more days. I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful surroundings, the knowledge and wisdom the monks offered in a safe and secure place, and be around sincere individuals that were serious about learning more about Buddhism. Shasta Abbey offered spiritual counseling, where all your questions and concerns about Buddhism or life in general could be answered as fully as it can be by the senior monk available. I participated, asking questions that I found along the way during self-study and my time at the Abbey. Then during meditation, I had an image that I have for years tried to repress. I had a suicide in the family 11 years ago that prompted my search for meaning in life and how could someone so dear to me, suffer in a way that suicide was the answer. I could not get this image out of my head for 11 years. I could not sleep at night, despite prescription anti-depressants, sleeping pills, or anxiety medications. I signed up for spiritual counseling after seeing this image again in meditation and spoke to the monk about what was going through my head. She explained things in a way that let me understand what was needed of me to assist with my guilt, anger, frustration, and pain that I was feeling about the situation. I did what she instructed (which involved meditation) and I worked through the tears, the pain, the anguish, and the distorted memories to see the truth, I loved my brother and he did what he thought was the best way to deal with whatever it was he was going through. After coming to terms with that, that night, I slept. I was not plagued by nightmares, or distorted images that haunted my memories. For the next couple days during meditation periods, I came to those thoughts from time to time and sat with them all, not judging them and not pushing them away. I felt lighter. I felt free to just be okay.
I’m so grateful that I found Mt. Shasta. Even today I can have email spiritual counseling. I do from time to time, to get grounded on some issues that I face in everyday life, and even though the monks are busy, they take time when they can to help. The monks inspired me to see that there is no inadequacy within me or others, it’s true I do lapse from time to time, but I always remind myself of the lessons I learned at Shasta Abbey.
www.shastaabbey.org
3724 Summit Dr
Mt Shasta, CA 96067-9102
(530) 926-4208
Should We Turn Earth’s Radiation Into Energy?
Physicists May Have Found New Way To Turn Earth’s Radiation Into Energy
By: Hunter Stuart; The Huffington Post
Our planet is warm. Outer space is cold. Can we take that heat difference and turn it into electricity?
Physicists at Harvard University may have found a way to do just that. They’ve proposed in a new study how to harvest the Earth’s thermal infrared radiation, and convert it into direct-current (DC) power.
“It’s not at all obvious, at first, how you would generate DC power by emitting infrared light in free space toward the cold,” study co-author Dr. Federico Capasso, a professor of applied physics and senior research fellow in electrical engineering at the university, said in a written statement. “To generate power by emitting, not by absorbing light, that’s weird. It makes sense physically once you think about it, but it’s highly counterintuitive. We’re talking about the use of physics at the nanoscale for a completely new application.”
One method in the study involves putting a hot plate (at the temperature of the Earth) beneath a cooler plate made from emissive material that gets colder by radiating heat toward the sky. The researchers said, based on a separate study they did on infrared emissions, that during the day or night such a contraption could produce a few watts of electricity for every square meter of the device, depending on the size of the plates.
That approach is “fairly intuitive,” study co-author Steven J. Byrnes, a postdoc researcher at Harvard, said in the statement. But a second proposed method is a little more complex.
It involves making many tiny electric circuits that would have two parts: “resistors” (or antennas) that emit the Earth’s infrared radiation, and mini electronic components called “diodes” that conduct a resistor’s electric current in a single direction. Keeping the diode warmer than the resistor will create voltage, the researchers said, and by covering a flat device with thousands or perhaps millions of these circuits and pointing it at the sky, you could get a significant amount of electricity using the Earth’s radiation as its source.
But there are still complications to figure out, the researchers said, one of which is that it’s hard to build and manipulate a diode with the low voltage levels created by the infrared emissions. A possible solution may lie in the manufacture of molecular-sized devices.
“People have been working on infrared diodes for at least 50 years without much progress,” Byrnes said. “But recent advances such as nanofabrication are essential to making them better, more scalable, and more reproducible.”
This new research was published this week in the journal Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences.
Article Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/06/physicists-may-have-found_radiation-energy-harvard-university_n_4904971.html
33 Facts About Pollution That Are Gross
- Every year, the United States creates 11 billion tons of solid waste.
- The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the U.S. generates over 256 million tons of officially classified hazardous waste annually. This does not include toxic and hazardous waste that are not regulated or monitored by the EPA.
- Between 1950 and 1975, approximately 5 billion metric tons of highly poisonous chemicals were improperly disposed of in the U.S. It will cost between $370 billion and $1.7 trillion to clean up hazardous waste in the U.S. The EPA states there are at least 36,000 seriously contaminated sites in the U.S.
- Today, there are between 300 and 500 chemicals in the average person’s body that were not found in anyone’s body before 1920. Each year there are thousands of new chemicals sold or used in new products. There are more than 75,000 synthetic chemicals on the market today.
- Factories in the United States discharge approximately 3 million tons of toxic chemicals into the water, air, and land annually. Each year 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are dumped into U.S. waters.
- A 2010 study found that children in families who live near freeways are twice as likely to have autism as kids who live farther away from freeways. Scientists believe the increased risk is due to exposure to pollutants given off by freeway traffic.
- Concentrations of two common pollutants, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOSA (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid), which can be found in nonstick cookware and stain-repellant fabrics, can impair immunity in children. They can also prevent vaccines from triggering sufficient quantities of protective antibodies.
- Americans make up an estimated 5% of the world’s population. However, the U.S. produces an estimated 30% of the world’s waste and uses 25% of the world’s resources.
- The world’s largest polluter is the U.S. Department of Defense, producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined.
- The Mississippi River carries an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen pollution into the Gulf of Mexico each year, creating a “dead zone” in the Gulf each summer about the size of New Jersey.o
- Approximately 46% of the lakes in America are too polluted for fishing, aquatic life, or swimming.
- Americans buy over 29 million bottles of water every year. Making all those bottles uses 17 million barrels of crude oil annually, which would be enough fuel to keep 1 million cars on the road for one year. Only 13% of those bottles are recycled. Plastic bottles take centuries to decompose—and if they are burned, they release toxic byproducts such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals.g
- Fourteen billion pounds of garbage, mostly plastic, is dumped into the ocean every year.
- Over 1 million seabirds are killed by plastic waste per year. Over 100,000 sea mammals and countless fish are killed per year due to pollution.
- More oil is seeped into the ocean each year as a result of leaking cars and other non-point sources than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.
- Polluted coastal water costs the global economy $12.8 billion a year in death and disease.
- Scientists report that carbon dioxide emissions are decreasing the pH of the oceans and, in essence, acidifying them.
- An estimated 1,000 children in India die every day due to disease caused by polluted water.
- Approximately 1/3 of male fish in British rivers are in the process of changing sex due to pollution. Hormones in human sewage, including those produced by the female contraceptive pill, are thought to be the main cause.
- Pollution in China alters the weather in the United States. It takes just five days for the jet stream to carry heavy air pollution from China to the U.S. Once in the atmosphere over the U.S., the pollution stops clouds from producing rain and snow—i.e., more pollution equals less precipitation.
- Though Botswana has only 2 million people, it is the second most polluted nation in the world. Pollution from the mineral industry and wild fires are the main causes.
- Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the eighth most populous in the world, with over 155 million people. It is also Africa’s largest oil producer, accounting for 2.3 million barrels of crude oil a day. However, the UN recently declared that 50 years of oil pollution in the Ogoniland would require the world’s largest and biggest oil cleanup.
- The world’s largest heavy metal smelting complex is in the Siberian city of Norilsk. Human life expectancy there is 10 years lower than in other Russian cities.
- Between 1930 and 1998, nearly 300,000 tons of chemical waste was improperly disposed of in Dzershinsk, Russia, a Cold War chemicals manufacturing site. Toxic levels are 17 million times the safe limit. In 2003, the death rate of the city exceeded the birth rate by 260%.
- Lake Karachay, located in the southern Ural Mountains in Russia, is considered to be the most polluted spot on earth after it was used for decades as a dumping site for nuclear waste. Spending just 5 minutes near the lake unprotected can kill a person. In the 1960s, the lake dried out and radioactive dust carried by the wind irradiated half a million people with radiation equivalent to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
- In Rudnaya Pristan, Russia, lead contamination has resulted in child blood levels eight to 20 times higher than allowable U.S. levels. Children in Kabwe, Zambia have some of highest blood levels of lead in the world
- In Kabwe, Zambia, child blood levels of lead are five to 10 times higher than the allowable EPA maximum.
- The largest e-waste site on earth is in Guiyu, China. Approximately 88% of children there have dangerous levels of lead in their blood.
- The world’s largest CO2 emitter is China. China emits more CO2 than the U.S. and Canada combined, up by 171% since 2000. The U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest polluter
- Over 80% of items buried in landfills could be recycled instead.
- For 1.1.billion people around the world, clean water in unobtainable. Almost half of the world’s population does not have proper water treatment.
- The average office employee throws away 360 pounds of recyclable paper each year.
- Antarctica is the cleanest place on Earth and is protected by strong antipollution laws.
References: a Agin, Dan. “Cadmium Pollution Kills Fetal Sex Organ Cells.” Huffington Post. October 15, 2009. January 25, 2012. b “Beach Pollution Worse during a Full Moon.” Live Science. August 1, 2005. Accessed: January 25, 2012. c Blackstone, John. “Pollution from China Alters Weather in U.S.” CBS News. December 12, 2011. Accessed: January 25, 2012. d Brown, Paul. 2003. Global Pollution. Chicago, IL: Raintree. e Chan, Amanda. “Could Pollution Increase Lung Cancer Risk?” Huffington Post. October 31, 2011. Accessed: January 25, 2012. f “Creaking, Groaning: Infrastructure Is India’s Biggest Handicap.” The Economist. December 11, 2008. g Didier, Suzanne. “Water Bottle Pollution Facts.” National Geographic. 2011. Accessed: January 25, 2012. h “Following the Trail of Toxic E-Waste.” 60 Minutes. January 8, 2010. Accessed: January 25, 2012. i Gifford, Clive. 2006. Planet under Pressure: Pollution. North Mankato, MN: Heinemann-Raintree Library. j Jakab, Cheryl. 2007. Global Issues: Clean Air and Water. North Mankato, MN: Smart Apple Media. k Kilham, Chris. “The Dangers of Indoor Air Pollution.” Fox News. October 26, 2011. Accessed: January 25, 2012. l Klinkenborg, Verlyn. “Our Vanishing Night.” National Geographic. November 2008. Accessed: January 25, 2012. m “Litter Prevention.” Keep America Beautiful. 2006. Accessed: January 25, 2012. n “Noise Pollution.” United States Environmental Protection Agency. July 2011. Accessed: January 25, 2012. o Orme, Helen. 2008. Earth in Danger: Pollution. New York, NY: Bearport Publishing. p Patel-Predd, Prachi. “A Spaceport for Treehuggers.” Discover Magazine. November 26, 2007. Accessed: January 25, 2012. q “Pollution ‘Changes Sex of Fish.’” BBC News. July 10, 2004. Accessed: January 25, 2012. r Raloff, Janet. “’Nonstick’ Pollutants May Cut Efficiency of Vaccines in Kids.” Science News. January 24, 2012. Accessed: January 25, 2012. s Saltzman, Sammy Rose. “Autism: Air Pollution May Be to Blame, Study Suggests.” CBS News. December 17, 2010. Accessed: January 25, 2012. t “Tailpipe Test: Study Finds Worst Polluters.” Live Science. January 9, 2006. Accessed: January 25, 2012. u Taylor, John. “70 Miles of Flotsam and Radioactive Waste Dumped into the Ocean.” Protect the Ocean. April 12, 2011. Accessed: January 25, 2012. v “Top Ten Toxic Pollution Problems 2011.” Blacksmith Institute. 2012. Accessed: January 25, 2012. w Walsh, Bryan. “The 10 Most Polluted Air-Polluted Cities in the U.S.” Time. September 29, 2011. Accessed: January 25, 2012. x Wehr, Kevin. 2011. Green Culture: An A-to-Z Guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. y “World Carbon Dioxide Emissions Data by Country: China Speeds ahead of the Rest.” The Guardian. January 31, 2011. Accessed: January 25, 2012. z “World’s Most Polluted Countries.” CNBC. 2012. Accessed: January 25, 2012