Environmental Advocate's Statistics in Hand


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Contents: Introduction, Population, Affluence, Energy, Transportation, Agriculture, Species Depletion, Forests, Global Warming

Introduction

There are often times when I found it useful to quote some great fact about deforestation or energy efficiency in environmental discussions. Therefore I compiled this list of important facts about environmental degradation and the human predicament. This isn't so my web page readers can be depressed about the status of the world's poor, or how fast we are losing species in tropical rain forests. Instead, I hope these statistics will be used in environmental discussions with friends and co-workers to improve general knowledge on environmental issues.

Americans commonly know that garbage is "bad" and recycling is "good", but most have no concept of how humanity is straining the earth's physical systems, and how their diet, energy consumption, and daily commute makes a substantial personal impact. They also seem to think that overpopulation is a problem of the poor, developing world. The impact of population is determined by the number of people and the average resource use per person, which means the U.S. is much more overpopulated than China.

I have also tried to highlight the perverse way the U.S. government subsidizes intensive resource consumption at cut-rate prices. This does not increase jobs and allow for a strong economy, but instead provides incentives for wasteful resource use while we mine the natural capital of our nation.

The references are all linked directly to the most accurate, reliable sources I could find. When I couldn't find that statistic on the web, the link is to my reference page and the requested book appears at the top.

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Population
1998 world population	5.9 billion	US Census Bureau
World yearly rate of increase	1.31%	US Census Bureau
World doubling rate	53 years	my calculations
2030 projected population	8.2 billion	US Census Bureau
# women without access to family planning	230 million	Alan Guttmacher Institute
Cost of family planning for 300 million couples	$10 to $12 billion/yr	Zero Population Growth
US taxes to international family planning	$385 million/yr	Zero Population Growth
US taxes to domestic family planning	$198 million/yr	Zero Population Growth
US taxes to military	$262 billion/yr	US Gov. Printing Office
US taxes to non-military foreign aid	$8.5 billion/yr	US Gov. Printing Office
1998 US population	270 million	US Census Bureau
US rate of increase	0.9%	US Census Bureau
US doubling rate	77 years	my calculations
% growth due to immigration	25%	Paul Ehrlich, The Stork and the Plow
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Affluence
Children who are malnourished, world	174 million	UNICEF
Children's deaths, world	12.4 million/yr	UNICEF
# of absolute poor, world	1 to 1.4 billion	Paul Ehrlich, The Stork and the Plow
# w/o access to clean, safe drinking water	1.1 billion	UNICEF
# with no decent sanitation facilities	2.9 billion	UNICEF
Impact of the average US citizen is about:		World Resource Institute
20 times that of a Costa Rican
50 times that of a Malagasi
70 times that of a Bangladeshi
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Energy
World petroleum output will peak during the first decade of the next century and will decline rapidly thereafter		Colin J. Campbell, The Coming Oil Crisis
Energy Source Summary:		Jeremy Legget, Global Warming
Energy Source	Cost in US	Subsidies by US Govt.
nuclear	13.5cents/KWhr	16 billion
oil	8.0cents/KWhr	8 billion
wind	7.0cents/KWhr	-
increasing capacity by energy efficiency	0.5-2cents/KWhr	1 billion
To avert global warming with nuclear power by 2025 would require a new nuclear power plant every 2.5 days		Jeremy Legget, Global Warming
If one year's budget for the US military force in the middle east was spent on making US buildings more heat-tight, this would save more oil than the country imports from the Middle East		G. Tyler Miller Jr., Resource Conservation and Management
If everyone in the US used super-insulating windows, we would save more oil and natural gas each year than Alaska now supplies.		G. Tyler Miller Jr., Resource Conservation and Management
Switching all lights to efficient fluorescent bulbs would eliminate the need for all 111 US nuclear power plants.		G. Tyler Miller Jr., Resource Conservation and Management
Improving US domestic car efficiency from the current average of 19 MPG to 22 MPG would replace US imports of oil from Iraq and Kuwait.		G. Tyler Miller Jr., Resource Conservation and Management
Raising the average fuel efficiency to 31 MPG would eliminate the need for any oil from the Persian Gulf altogether.		Hunter Lovins, Changing America
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Transportation
Est. cost to maintain current US roads	24.6 billion	Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
$ actually spend on current US roads	13.4 billion	Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
$ spent on new and wider US roads	16.4 billion	Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
US subsidies on roads and cars	300 billion	Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
Proj. increase in US road congestion by 2010	300%	Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
US auto deaths per year	47,000	Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
American deaths in Vietnam war	47,000	Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
US arable land covered by pavement	10%	Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
US paved land area is equal to the state of Georgia		Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
Cost of motor vehicle air pollution damage	$200 billion	Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
1 railroad track has the capacity of 4 freeway lanes		Alliance for a Paving Moratorium
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Agriculture
World arable land per capita, 1960	1.07 acres/ person	Population Action International
World arable land per capita, 1990	0.67 acres/ person	Population Action International
Proj. arable land per capita, 2050	0.37 acres/ person	Population Action International
Current world grain harvest could feed:		R. Chen, The Hunger Report
6 billion vegans (no grain diverted to livestock)
4 billion with typical South American diet (15% calories from animal sources)
2.6 billion with "full but healthy diet" (30% calories from animal sources)
All major fishing areas have reached or exceeded their maximum sustainable yield, and half are in serious decline		Paul Ehrlich, The Stork and the Plow
US eroded cropland soil would bury a football field 200 miles deep each year		USDA, National Resources Inventory
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Species Depletion
Estimated species on earth	3 to 30 million	People and Environment World Res. Ins.
Number of species identified	1.8 million	People and Environment World Res. Ins.
Number of species in tropical forests	40 to 90%	People and Environment World Res. Ins.
Estimated species loss per decade, 1975-2015	1 to 11 percent	People and Environment World Res. Ins.
The rate of human induced extinction is now estimated to be one million times faster than the rate of evolution of new species		Paul Ehrlich, The Stork and the Plow
Extinction rate before 1600 AD	1 per millenium	Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life
Estimated current extinction rate	10,000/yr	Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life
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Forests
World forest cover cleared since 1950	20%	Lester Brown, State of the World 1995
Tropical forest destruction rate	5.4 million acres/yr	Environmental Almanac
At this rate, all tropical forests will be gone within a century		Environmental Almanac
Current US old growth forest	51 million acres	Environmental Almanac
US old growth forest destruction	10,000 acres/year	Environmental Almanac
At this rate, all US old growth forests will be gone in 15-25 years		Environmental Almanac
US Forest Service charge to timber companies	$2 per tree	Wilderness Society Newsletter
US subsidies to commercial timber sales	224 million	Wilderness Society Newsletter
Mining companies can purchase any public land that contains hard-rock mineral deposits for less that $5 per acre		John Young, World Watch
US solid waste per person	7 lbs/day	Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life
US municipal solid waste is 50% packaging		Alan Durning, How Much is Enough?
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Global Warming
Carbon dioxide (CO2) conc, pre-industrialization	280 ppm	International Panel on Climate Change
Current CO2 concentration	360 ppm	International Panel on Climate Change
CO2 conc, 2100, with constant emissions	500 ppm	International Panel on Climate Change
Global mean temp increase, last century	0.3 to 0.6 deg. C	International Panel on Climate Change
Projected global mean temp increase, 1990-2100	1 to 3.5 deg C	International Panel on Climate Change
The last ice age was only 5 deg C cooler than present		Stephen Schneider, Global Warming
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