Environment

Our anthropogenic influence – production, consumption, waste, and associated emissions – is costing us hundreds of billions of dollars in climate disasters every year, and brought us to the precipice of the sixth mass extinction. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg

• U.S. weather and climate-related disasters reached $145 billion in 2021, with the top 20 storms costing more than $1 billion each. S&P Global

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• At our current rate of natural resource consumption and environmental destruction, we will need the resources of three Earths by 2050. UN

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• As of 2018, energy was responsible for more than 73% of global GHGs.

  • 32% of that is from electricity and heating alone

  • "greenhouse gas emissions from energy rose to their highest ever level in 2021," with the biggest increase in electricity and heating iea

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• Nearly 26% of all emissions are from food production Our World in Data

  • nearly 60% of that is from meat and dairy. The Guardian

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• Less than 9% of all plastic, ever produced, has been recycled. C2ES

  • At its increasing rate of production, emissions from plastic will be greater than coal by 2030. Reuters

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• On August 1, 2019, Greenland lost 12.5 billion tons of ice in one day.

  • that summer, Arctic sea ice was 47% smaller than the previous 40-year average.

  • "The 13 smallest summer lows on record for Arctic sea ice have all occurred in the last 13 years." The World Counts​

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• Every year, about 1.3 billion metric tons (nearly 3 trillion pounds) of food are wasted. 

  • Food waste from the U.S. and E.U. alone could feed the entire world population three times over...

  • yet there is still so much extreme poverty that 9 million people die from hunger every year. The World Counts

  • Food waste accounts for 6% of global emissions - nearly as much as the entire airline industry. Our World in Data​

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• Nearly 80% of fisheries worldwide are depleted - 90% of "large predatory fish, such as sharks, tuna, marlin, and swordfish, are already gone!

  • if the rate of overfishing does not change, studies confirm that seafood will run out by 2048. The World Counts​​

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• Over the past five centuries, 900 hundred species have gone extinct...

  • today, over 35,000 species – a mere fraction of those yet to be evaluated – are threatened with extinction. Our World in Data

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• In the first four months of 2022 alone, there have been nearly 60 trillion and 90 million hours, respectively, of slave and child labor. The World Counts