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RSS FeedMatters of Scale - Liquidating Our Assets
Amount of water returned to the Ogallala Aquifer by rainfall each year | 2.4 billion gallons |
Amount drawn from the Ogallala for irrigation and other human uses each year | 20.0 billion gallons |
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Amount of topsoil created by nature each year | 0.4 billion tons |
Amount lost to erosion | 25.0 billion tons |
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Time it takes the global human economy to consume the equivalent of 22 million tons of oil | 1 day |
Time it took the planet to create that energy | 10,000 days |
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Number of species lost to extinction each year, on average, during the past 65 million years | 1 to 10 |
Number lost in the past year (conservatively estimated) | 1,000 to 10,000 |
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Time it took for the world to lose 1 percent of its forests, on average, during the 30 centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution | 100 years |
Time it is taking to lose 1 percent now | 1 year |
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Number of endangered black-footed ferrets known to remain in the wild | 24 |
Number of endangered Madagascan tree boas found in a suitcase being carried by smuggler Simon David Harris in 1996 | 61 |
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Number of threatened Peninsular bighorn sheep in California's Coachella Valley | 95 |
Number of habitat-displacing golf courses in the Coachella Valley | 91 |
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Sources: Paul Hawkin, The Ecology of Commerce (New York: Harper Collins, 1993). G. Tyler Miller, Living in the Environment (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1992). Vital Signs 1997 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997). John C. Ryan, Life Support: Conserving Biological Diversity, Worldwatch Paper 108 (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, April 1992). Janet Abramovitz, "Valuing Nature's Services," in State of the World 1997 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997). Alan Durning, Saving the Forests, Worldwatch Paper 117 (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, December 1993). Donovan Webster, New York Times Magazine, February 16, 1997. Diana Marcum, Los Angeles Times Washington, DC edition, March 17, 1997.
