Before we get started let's consider what happens on the average day:

• 35,000 people die of starvation; 26,000 of them are children, even though enough food is produced each year to feed the current population.

• 57 million tons of topsoil is lost to erosion. In the past 100 years, one third of the topsoil on American farms has been lost.

• 70 more square miles of desert are created. Presently, one third of the world’s cropland is threatened by desertification.

• 116 square miles of tropical forests vanish, an area larger than the state of Maine.

• Somewhere between 10-100 species become extinct. Three-fourths of the 9000 birds species are declining in numbers or are threatened by extinction.

• 1.5 million tons of hazardous waste is released into the air, water and land, and Americans will throw away enough garbage to fill 2 football stadiums.

• 14 million chickens and 300,000 cows, pigs, and sheep are slaughtered in the USA alone, and 64% of the total US grain crop is fed to livestock.

• The average US citizen’s negative impact on the environment is between 30 and 100 times that of an average person in a developing nation. With 4.5% of the population, we use about 34% of the worlds mineral resources, 30% of its food, and 25% of its non-renewable energy; and we create about 36% of its pollution. We also use 33% of the world’s paper, cutting down 1,000 acres of forest each day to produce our paper.

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 80% of cancers are caused by pollution. We know that half of our air pollution is caused by internal combustion engines from motor vehicles.

• Current population doubles approx every 40 years: The rule of 70. If a sum increases at a 1% per annum rate, it will double in 70 years.

"Man has lost the capacity to foresee and forestall.  He will end by destroying the earth."
-Albert Schweitzer