State of our Planet

“Our planet is under attack and quickly reaching a point of no return. 

Since we all breath the same air and drink the same water, the health of our

environment dictates the health of the human race.”

Fact 1:  POPULATION

The world’s population has grown more in the last 50 years than in the past 4 million years and is the single biggest threat to our planet and its resources. The current population estimated at six and a half billion is projected to reach over nine billion in the next 50 years.

Fact 2:  FOOD

Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes.  This is one child every five seconds. 

Fact 3:  FRESHWATER

Currently, one in five people in the world survive on less water per day than is used to flush a toilet.

Fact 4:  NATURAL RESOURCES

According to the American Almanac, though accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s population, Americans consume 26 percent of the world’s energy.  A single person in North America consumes as much as 30 or 40 people in a typical third world country. 

Fact 5:  POLLUTION

Organic pollutants such as PCBs and DDT are found in such large concentrations in some species of whales that they, the animals, are treated as toxic waste.

Fact 6:  GLOBAL WARMING

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that global temperatures will rise an additional 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 to 5.5 degrees Celsius) by the end of the century.

Fact 7:  DEFORESTATION

The Amazon rainforest, representing over half of the world’s remaining rainforests, is considered one of the richest and most biologically divers regions in the world¹.  More than one fifth of the Amazon rainforest has already been destroyed.

Fact 8:  BIODIVERSITY

If present trends continue, half of all species on earth will be extinct in less than 100 years, primarily due to habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change.

Fact 9:  WEATHER

Category 4-5 hurricanes occurred on average 3 times per year prior to 1975. In the past 14 years, and average of 19 category 4-5 hurricanes occurred per year.

Fact 10:  POLAR ICE

The amount of ice in the Arctic has been shrinking by nearly 8 percent per decade since the 1980s and the rate is increasing.

1.      POPULATION

The single biggest threat to our planet and its resources is over population. It took about 4 million years from the beginning of man to reach a population of 1 billion in the 1800s.  But it only took another 125 years to reach 2 billion people, about 50 more years to grow to 4 billion people, and only 25 more years to reach six billion people. The current population, estimated at six and a half billion, is projected to reach over nine billion in the next 50 years, and is increasing by nearly 220,000 each day.  For the first time in history, the urban population of our planet outnumbers those living in rural areas.

Poverty

Some 3 billion people live on less than two dollars a day. Only 12 percent of the world’s population has access to some form of motor power transportation.  Sixty five percent of the world’s population has never made a telephone call, and a third has no access to electricity, a key factor in perpetuating poverty around the world (Fueling the Future). 

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2.      FOOD

Hunger is a continuing problem in undeveloped countries, especially in Africa.  Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes.  This is one child every five seconds.  According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, by the year 2020, more than 130 million children who are under the age of five will be malnourished.

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3.      FRESHWATER

Of the planets estimated 340 million cubic miles (1,4000 million cubic km) of water, 97 percent is undrinkable salt water, and another two percent is frozen in the polar ice caps. We are currently withdrawing 54 percent of the world’s accessible freshwater with over 70 percent of this being used in agriculture.  However, more than half is being wasted through poor and inefficient irrigation methods. 

More than one billion people across the globe do not have access to clean freshwater. Currently 1 in 5 people in the world survive on less water per day then is used to flush a toilet.  At least two million people, mostly children, die each year from a lack of access to water or poor water quality.  In many parts of the developing world, the lack of access to fresh water is a problem of mismanagement and corruption leading to competition and conflicts between nations.

A recent study shows that over 60 percent of the world’s 227 largest rivers have been disrupted by dams, causing the destruction of wetlands, a 50 percent decline of freshwater species, and the forced displacement of millions of people.

Freshwater is a finite resource, a supply that is quickly being exhausted.  At the same time, the demand for freshwater is doubling every 20 years, twice the rate of human population growth.  The impacts of factory farming, flood irrigation, the construction of massive dams, toxic dumping, destruction of forests and wetlands, and urban and industrial pollution have damaged the Earth’s surface water so badly that we are forced to extract underground water reserves much faster than nature can replenish them.

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4.      NATURAL RESOURCES

With six and a half billion people drawing sustenance from the limited resources of the world, we cannot continue at our present rate of consumption. A 2004 World Wildlife Fund study concluded that humans currently consume 20 percent more natural resources than the earth can produce.  The study found that from 1970 to 2000, populations of terrestrial and marine species dropped by 30 per cent, while freshwater populations plummeted by an incredible 50 per cent.  They attribute this decline as a direct consequence of human demand for food, fiber, energy, and water.  By dividing the earth’s 11.3 billion hectares of productive land and sea space among 6.1 billion people, this equates to 1.8 hectares of land available to provide natural resources for each of the people on the planet.  In 2004, the average impact on our natural resources was equivalent to 2.2 hectares per person.  This is referred to as man’s ecological footprint, a measure of environmental sustainability.  It measures how much nature we have and how much nature we use.

According to the American Almanac, though accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s population, Americans consume 26 percent of the world’s energy.  The ecological “footprint” of the average North American is double that of a European, and seven times that of the average Asian or African.  A single person in North America consumes as much as 30 or 40 people in a typical third world country. 

Only 6 percent of total U.S. energy consumption came from renewable sources in 2004, down from 7.5 percent in 1998. 

The five renewable energy sources used most often include hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass.

It is absolutely crucial that governments, industry, and the public switch to renewable energies and promote energy efficient technologies, buildings and transport systems.  By taking appropriate energy-saving measures, the United States could reduce average household costs by $530 per year and reduce global warming pollutants emissions to 10 percent below 1990 levels (Energy Innovations report).  Simply by replacing one incandescent light bulb with an energy-saving compact fluorescent bulb means 1,000 pounds less carbon dioxide is emitted and $67 is saved on energy costs over the bulb’s lifetime (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Alliance to Save Energy).  A decrease of only 1 percent in industrial energy use would save the equivalent of about 55 million barrels of oil per year, worth about $1 billion.

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5.      POLLUTION

Pollution is the addition of substances in concentrations that are beyond the environment’s capacity to handle them and that are detrimental to people and other living things.  Pollution does not stay in one place but is moved around by air and water as well as by living organisms. 

40 percent of America’s rivers and 46 percent of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life. Two thirds of US estuaries and bays are either moderately or severely degraded from eutrophication (nitrogen and phosphorus pollution).  The Mississippi River, which drains nearly 40 percent of the continental United States, carries an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of nitrogen pollution into the Gulf of Mexico each year creating the second largest marine dead zone in the world. 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, stormwater, and industrial waste are discharged into U.S. waters annually.  In any given year, 25 percent of beaches in the U.S. are under cautioned or closed at least one due to water pollution.

Every day, on average, about 16 million tons of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere worldwide.  The United State is responsible for 23 percent of these emissions (U.S. Department of Energy).  The majority of the carbon dioxide emissions come from North America, Europe, and Asia.  The last time our planet has seen today’s CO2 levels was 50 million year ago.

Chemical pollutants often make their way into the water where it is spread much more easily. Contaminants have impeded the reproductive success of several fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds.  Forty-six states in the U.S. warn about toxic contamination of local fish.  Europeans females have been known to pass on more dioxin to their babies through their breast milk than what is legally allowed for cow’s milk.  The amount of pesticide spayed on our crops around the world has increased 26 times in the last 50 years.

It is important that human activities minimize the amount of pollution by switching to clean technology such as electric cars, solar power, and environmentally friendly products.  This leads to better quality of life for all living creatures.

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6.      GLOBAL WARMING

Throughout the Earth’s history, temperatures have fluctuated from hotter and colder about every 100,000 years depending on the planet’s orbit and celestial orientation.  During the last ice age, about 70,0000 to 11,500 years ago, when ice covered much of North America and Europe, scientists discovered evidence that large and sometimes very sudden fluctuations in temperature occurred.  Greenland ice cores reveal a period where temperatures increased by 15 degrees Fahrenheit (9 degrees Celsius) in just 10 years.

The evidence for global warming is overwhelming.  The spring ice thaw in the Arctic occurs 9 days earlier than it did 150 years ago, and the fall freeze starts 10 days later. The average rise in temperature on our planet over the past 100 years is about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 of a degree Celsius).  The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects global temperatures to rise an additional 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 to 5.5 degrees Celsius) before the turn of the century. Unfortunately, the regions that will see the greatest temperature changes are those areas of the globe that can least afford to deal with it (South America, India, Africa, Arctic).

The biggest human induced contributor to global warming is the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. 

Carbon Dioxide

There is no denying that human-induced burning of fossil fuels (greenhouse gases) is a major contributor to the increased levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere by producing these gases faster than the plants and oceans can soak them up.  The planet is experiencing carbon dioxide levels higher than it has seen for hundreds of thousands of years. The burning of fossil fuels is the source of 78 percent of the world’s energy.

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7.      DEFORESTATION

The destruction of our forests has caused the greatest extinction of species since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago.  According to the World Resources Institute, 100 species become extinct every day from tropical deforestation.  The Amazon rainforest represents over half of the world’s remaining rainforests.  It is considered one of the richest and most biologically divers regions on the planet¹; home to nearly 10 percent of the world’s mammals, and 15 percent of the world’s known terrestrial plants.  More than one fifth of the Amazon Rainforest has already been destroyed.  What remains is under threat, primarily from the world’s demand for cheap cattle.  In the past 35 years, the consumption of South American beef has gone up 500 percent, which has led to the depletion of Brazilian rainforests by 25 percent, converted to provide land for grazing cattle².

In the past century, undeveloped land in the United States has decreased from 60 percent to 21 percent.  These modern concrete worlds are contributing to waterway and groundwater pollution.

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8.      BIODIVERSITY

The world’s biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate.  Current extinction rates are at least 100 to 1000 times higher than historical estimates found in the fossil record. If present trends continue, half of all species on earth will be extinct in less than 100 years primarily due to habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change.

An alarming 15,589 (7,266 animal species and 8,323 plant and lichen species) are now considered at risk of extinction.  These include on in three amphibians, almost half of all turtles, one in four mammals, one if five sharks and rays, and one in eight birds. At least one in eight known plant species is threatened with extinction. According to the World Conservation Union, 844 animals and plants are known to have gone extinct in the last 500 years.  At least 15 species have gone extinct in the past 20 years and another 12 survive only in captivity.

Habitat protection is essential to help preserve our species diversity.  Currently about 12 percent of the earth’s land surface is in protected areas, and only about 0.6 percent of the oceans.

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9.      WEATHER

Although somewhat still controversial, many scientists believe that global warming is creating conditions that are favoring more severe hurricanes.  Warmer sea surface temperatures and the increase in humidity are the primary sources of fuel for hurricanes.  The Atlantic and Caribbean oceans have warmed significantly, and water vapor levels are some 15 percent higher on average than they were 30 years ago.  Category 4-5 hurricanes occurred on average 3 times per year prior to 1975. In the past 14 years, an average of 19 category 4-5 hurricanes occurred per year.

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10.  POLAR ICE

The amount of ice in the Arctic has been shrinking by nearly 8 percent per decade since the 1980s and the rate is increasing. Scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) predict the summertime Arctic will be ice-free before the end of this century threatening polar bears and ring seals with extinction.  The melting of Greenland’s massive ice sheets has the potential to raise sea levels by 23 feet (7 meters).

Ice reflects 80 percent of the sun’s heat back into space.  Water absorbs 80 percent of the sun’s heat.  As the polar ice melts and is replaced with water, this magnifies the global warming effect, a process that will be difficult if not impossible to reverse. 

An important ocean circulatory system known as the ocean conveyor belt regulates global temperatures by moving tropical heat around the planet.  The introduced fresh water due to melting glaciers has the potential to disrupt the North Atlantic conveyor belt, possibly shutting it down within decades.  This could lead to a drop in temperature in Northern Europe equivalent to the last ice age.

Although the eight nations surrounding the emerging new land deny any hard evidence for global warming, they race to make territorial claims in order to capitalize on these newly available resources for exclusive economic zones.

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Literature Cited

1.  Turner, I.M. 2001. The ecology of trees in the tropical rain forest. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-80183-4

2.  Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) (2004) Beef exports fuel loss of Amazonian Forest. CIFOR News Online, Number 36.