Interesting Environmental Facts

Human Influenced Facts 

•  If just 25% of U.S. families used 10 fewer plastic bags a month, we would save over 2.5 BILLION bags a year. 
•  On the average, the 140 million cars in America are estimated to travel almost 4 billion miles in a day, and according to the Department of Transportation, they use over 200 million gallons of gasoline doing it. 
•  Every year we throw away 24 million tons of leaves and grass. Leaves alone account for 75% of our solid waste in the fall. 
•   Over 100 pesticide ingredients are suspected to cause birth defects, cancer, and gene mutations. 
•  Enough glass was thrown away in 1990 to fill the Twin Towers (1,350 feet high) of New York's World Trade Center every two weeks.
•  A three percent annual growth rate will result in the doubling of consumption and production of food and other products in 25 short years.  The amount of motor vehicles that are expected to be operated will increase 15 million a year until at least 2010.

•  Every day 50 to 100 species of plants and animals become extinct as their habitat and human influences destroy them.

 The Earth 

• Deserts are advancing and taking over the land. In Mali the desert has taken over about 220 miles in as few as 20 years. Deserts can be repelled, by developing tree-planting projects, having better agriculture and by managing the land better. However, governments still are reluctant to fund anti-desertification, despite horrific droughts that have occurred in recent years.
•  The Earth has been around for 4.6 billion years. Scaling this time down to 46 years we have been around for 4 hours and our Industrial Revolution began just 1 minute ago. During this short time period we have ransacked the planet for ways to get fuels and raw materials, have been the cause of extinction of an unthinkable amount of plants and animals, and have multiplied our population to that of a plague.
•  Despite all of the damage we have caused the environment most of it is reversible. We can restore habitats and return species to them; clean rivers; renovate buildings; replenish the topsoil, replant forests. However, these activities do not relieve the worst symptoms of the damage. We still have to fix the source of these problems, us and our vision that we must progress.

 Interesting Animal Facts 

• Penguins live only in the Southern Hemisphere and never in the Northern Hemisphere.
•  A single porcupine is known to kill 100 trees in one winter. It uses it's sharp claws to climb a tree, sits on a limb to gnaw away at the bark and twigs and then stuffs them all into its mouth at once. Because of it's liking for bark, the porcupine causes much damage to forests.
•  A scallop moves by sucking water into its shell and then squirting it out suddenly. It likes to wander around and this gives it enough force to push it in front in a zig zag manner.
•  A male garibaldi damselfish attract females for mating by covering a rock with a thick layer of alga. A male which clean off a rock to allow only algae to live have a higher chance of mating. The algae is also used to protect the eggs of the fish.
•  To prevent the nest from getting soaked, the rare white-chinned swift, which nests behind the waterfalls of Latin America plant pieces of moss in the nest which then grow and reinforce the nest.
•  A porcupine loves salt so much that it would walk into a camp and gnaw on anything that has been touched by salt or even by perspiring hands
•  The tip of an elephant's trunk is so sensitive and flexible that it can pick up a pin.
•  If a mole does not find food within 12 hours, it will die. Its chief food consists of insects and earthworms.
•  A male nightingale stops singing when its eggs have hatched so as not to attract unnecessary attention to the nest. However he gives short calls to tell the female that all is well or danger is approaching.
•  The Amazon army ants raid nests of certain black ants and carry back to cocoons and larvae to their own homes. When the cocoons hatch, they will become the slaves of these army ants and do all their work.