When it comes to saving our natural surroundings, few people are aware of the true environmental facts. If they were, they would immediately change their behaviors. The reality and severity of our situation becomes all too painfully obvious when you consider just a tiny fraction of what we’re dealing with:

Earth - Global warming

  • 80% of our forests have been completely destroyed.
  • 2000 trees, or the equivalent of 7 football fields, are cut down every minute in the Amazon rainforest. This doesn’t take into account the massive logging being practiced in other areas of the world.
  • In the United States, only 4% of our original forests remain. The rest are gone.
  • 40% of the United States water sources are unfit for human consumption. Many of the others possess levels of contaminants that have been deemed within regulations, but are still dangerous.
  • Although United States citizens constitute only 5% of the global population, they account for more than 30% of the world’s waste.
  • 75% of the world’s fisheries have been abused to the point where they are officially beyond capacity. We may soon find ourselves running out of not only water, but also fish.
  • 100,000 synthetically-produced chemical substances are considered “safe” for use in everyday production, meaning that their levels of toxins are considered acceptable. This means that anything you use which has been mechanically manufactured may be slowly poisoning you.
  • Computers, mattresses and pillows are just three examples of common household goods that contain significant amounts of BFR. BFR stands for Bromated Flame Retardant. It is a potent neurotoxin that damages your brain’s ability to function.
  • Thanks to modern food sources and how they affect women’s bodies, the most contaminated food is currently mother’s milk.
  • Each day, 200,000 people are forced to move to a big city because their previous environment is no longer capable of supporting them.
  • Official numbers (the real amount is probably several times greater) indicate that the United States puts out 4 billion pounds of dangerously toxic pollutants.
  • Today, individual rate of consumption is more than double what it was in the 1950’s.
  • It is estimated that we view 3,000 advertisements every day. This is more than twice what the average 1950’s consumer would have seen in their entire life.
  • United States citizens spend three to four times as much of their life shopping and consuming than Europeans.
  • The average size of the United States home has doubled since the 1970’s.
  • Each United States citizen creates about 4.5 lbs of garbage each day. This is twice the amount that was produced 30 years ago.
  • For every single garbage can that you take outside on garbage day, 70 equivalent cans of garbage were produced by all the various manufacturing processes that created the can.
  • 99% of all consumer goods are no longer being used 6 months after their purchase.

These pollution facts and figures make it seem almost impossible to fight the rising tide of pollution that threatens to engulf our world, but the environmental facts don’t necessarily mean that all is lost. We created this situation, and we can provide the solution if we simply work together and take the right steps. Here are some things we can do every day to make sure that the environment gets well soon:

  • If 25% of United States citizens would use 10 less plastic bags each month, 2.5 billion bags would be saved a year.
  • 380 gallons of oil are saved for each box of paper that gets recycled rather than wasted.
  • Environmental pest control can greatly reduce pesticide contamination of food.
  • We could do a lot for the environment if we developed an alternative to disposable diapers, which take 500 years to biodegrade. About 1% of all U.S. landfills are devoted entirely to disposable diapers.
  • Lowering your thermostat by one degree reduces up to 10% of your fuel consumption.
  • A train system was invented in 1987 that uses magnetic levitation and has almost no associated pollutants. Many other countries are implementing this technology, but the United States remains tied to its short-term lucrative automobile industry.

The facts above are frightening , and need to be changed – If you would like to help make a change today there are lots of ways to help the environment.