Earth Facts

• The industrialized nations, comprising one-fifth of the world's population, use four-fifths of its resources to achieve their current standard of living.

Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia

• In 1988, U.S. industry legally expelled 22 billion pounds of toxic waste into the air, soil, and water.

The Environmental Protection Agency

• The average American car driven 10,000 miles will release approximately its own weight, one to two tons, in carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

World Resources Institute

• By the late 1970s, air pollution caused 13,000 deaths and 7 million sick days annually. The Environmental Protection Agency

• There are currently two holes in the ozone that develop annually over the two poles; the one over the Antarctic is approximately the size of the United States.

The Sierra Club

• Number of additional skin cancer cases in the U.S. expected in the coming year due to increased ultraviolet rays from ozone loss: 250,000. ABC Nightline

• In California, nearly 130 million pounds of ozone-producing chemicals are emitted into the air each year, representing 5% of the world's output.

Citizens for a Better Environment

• There are enough chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) embedded in a single styrofoam cooler to destroy all the ozone over an area the size of 20 football fields.

National Toxics Campaign

• The styrofoam cups Americans use each year could form a chain that would circle the Earth 436 times. National Toxics Campaign

• In 1988, McDonalds Restaurants used 1.5 billion cubic feet of styrofoam.

Harper's Index

• Amount of meat imported annually by the U.S. from Central America: 2 million pounds. Amount of meat eaten by the average person in Central America: less than the average American house cat. Diet for a New America

• Every quarter pound hamburger from a steer raised in Central America represents the loss of 55 square feet, or one half ton of valuable tropical rain forest.

Chris Uhl, Forest Biologist

• Rain forest acres cleared every minute: 53. Harper's Index

• Disposable diapers represent 2% of all municipal solid waste in America.

The Environmental Protection Agency

• Today, we dump 80% of all solid waste into 6,000 landfills. In the last five years, we have closed one-third of them. Within the next five years, another third must be closed. TIME

• A landfill receiving 1,000 tons of waste per day will produce 11 tons of pollutants and toxic leaching each day. After a landfill closes, it is estimated that emissions could remain constant for as long as 30 years. Los Angeles City Lancer

• Every day, Los Angeles generates enough sewage to fill the Rose Bowl and the L.A. Coliseum. Heal the Bay

• The outflow from the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant near the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is the tenth largest river in California. Heal the Bay

• Animal agriculture has been responsible for 85% of our topsoil loss, 260 million acres of forest destruction, and 53% of the world water consumption.

U.N. Environment Program

• Water needed to produce one pound of wheat: 25 gallons

• Number of people who will starve to death this year: 60 million

• It takes 40 times the amount of fossil fuel to produce a pound of feedlot beef than to produce a pound of soybeans. Diet for a New America

• 1976 random testing of nursing mothers' milk showed almost all samples contained traces of DDT and PCBs. The Environmental Protection Agency

• Percentage of male college students sterile in 1950: 0.5%

• Annual world military budget: $900 billion

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