EarthxSimpleTruths

1. Reduce plastic pollution by eliminating single use plastics. 

• More than 70% of marine litter is plastic.
• If things don’t change, in 30 years, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.
• Plastic water bottles are used for one day but won’t biodegrade for centuries.

2.  Use a renewable energy source.   Last year, Texas generated 18% of its energy from wind and solar.

3.  Help protect our waterways.

• Don’t use chemical fertilizers  and especially don’t use them before it rains

• Dead zones form when excess nutrients, primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, enter coastal waters and help fertilize blooms of algae. Major nutrient sources include fertilizers, wastewater, and the burning of fossil fuels.

4.  Go meatless 1-2 days a week.

• Researchers at the University of Oxford found that cutting meat and dairy products from your diet could reduce an individual’s carbon footprint from food by up to 73 per cent.

5.  Reduce idling in your car.  Every 2 minutes of idling is equal to 1 mile of driving.

6.  Adopt a Zero Waste lifestyle

• Compost, recycle and reduce food waste
• Repair don’t discard
• We use over 380 billion plastic bags in the U.S. annually.
• Recycling creates 10-20 more jobs than landfilling.
• Organic waste in landfills generates, methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
• By composting wasted food and other organics, methane emissions are significantly reduced.

13. Go meatless one day per week 

14. Eliminate paper towels and use cloths instead 

15. Mulch your garden to save water 

16. Opt for paperless billing 

17. Use cold water when washing clothes 

18. Reduce shower time by 1 minute 

19. Install programmable thermostat 

20. Install a water savings shower head 

21. Eliminate use of disposable plastic cutlery 

22. Compost at home 

23. Recycle at home 

24. Recycle old electronics 

25. Carpool or take alternative transportation 

• In 1900, a hurricane in the Gulf Coast killed over 8,000 people on Galveston Island. This is, to this day, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

• The Texas Medical Center in Houston is the largest medical complex in the world. The center has 7.2 million visits per year.

• Aransas Wildlife Refuge in Texas is the winter home of North America’s only remaining flock of whooping cranes.

• The average homeowner may be able to save $600 a year on their electricity bill by leasing solar panels and up to $1,217 a year if they buy.

• The Great Texas Coastal Birding Trails was America’s first birding trail project and remains one of the best, featuring 308 distinct sites.

• In the United States, 69% of people support placing limits on the emissions of greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. 71% percent of people in China, 77% of people in Nigeria, and 88% of people in Brazil also support limits.

• A diesel car can be made to run on vegetable oil with some modifications!.

• Turn your thermostat down 2 degrees in the summer and up 2 degrees in the winter to save around 2,000 lbs of carbon per year.

• In 2013, 84% of Texans said they believed global warming has been happening and 76% said that the government should limit gas emissions from U.S. businesses.

• In New York, soot pollution from buildings has fallen by more than 50% since 2011 in the city, preventing an estimated annual 800 deaths and 2,000 hospital visits.

• According to NOAA, in March 2015 the global monthly average for carbon dioxide hit 400.83 parts per million. That is the first month in modern records that the entire globe broke 400 ppm, reaching levels that haven’t been seen in about 2 million years.

• 67% of Americans support carbon rules, even if this means higher utility bills.

• Pushed by the burning of coal, oil and gas, global carbon dioxide is 18 percent higher than it was in 1980, when NOAA first calculated a worldwide average. In 35 years, carbon dioxide levels rose 61 ppm. In pre-human times, it took about 6,000 years for CO2 to rise about 80 ppm.

• The average water footprint per calorie for beef is 20 times larger than for cereals and starchy roots.

• Vegetarian proteins like soy requires 216 gallons of water per pound grown.

• A dozen eggs requires 636 gallons of water to grow.

• The water used to produce ten hamburgers is the same amount of water that one person uses to shower for an entire year. Ten hamburgers equals one year of showers.

• It takes 2,500 gallons of water to grow one pound of beef.

• Temperatures in Antarctica rose 5.4 degrees in the last half-century, much faster than the average rise for the rest of the planet.

• 2014 has surpassed 2010 as the hottest year in recorded history, with average surface temperatures the highest they’ve been since at least 1880.

• Solar is the fastest-growing job market in the United States, growing at nearly twice the rate as the rest of the nation’s economy. The industry now employs nearly 143,000 in the U.S. a growth of more than 50% since 2010.

• Every hour, enough sunshine strikes Earth’s surface to satisfy global energy consumption needs for an entire year. Only 10 square miles of Earth’s surface would need to be covered with panels to capture it all.

• There’s been an 80% drop in the price of solar energy since 2008 and, according to a phenomenon called Swanson’s Law, the price of solar will continue to drop 20% with each doubling of cumulative shipped volume.

• The Antarctica ice sheet has lost 130 billion tons of ice per year over the last decade.

• In a survey about climate change, respondents in the United States, Australia, and Russia, all among the top carbon polluters per capita, were substantially less alarmed about the problem than their counterparts in India, Kenya, and Mexico.

• Turn your engine off at red lights! Idling for 10 seconds consumes more fuel than re-starting your engine.

• Demographers project that Dallas will continue to add 1 million people per decade for the next 30 years.

• More than 1 billion people in 192 countries took part in the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day in 2012.

• An estimated 1 in 10 Americans took part in the first Earth Day, observed across the country on April 22, 1970.

• The world has warmed 1.5 degrees celsius or 2.8 degrees fahrenheit over the past 250 years.

• Texas now counts 12,800 megawatts of wind energy capacity – at times enough to generate a quarter of the electricity on the grid.

• Harsh weather subtracted half a percentage point from growth in the first quarter of 2015, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 37 economists conducted from March 30 to April 1.

• While agriculture consumes 80% of the water in the state of California, it only represents 2% of California’s total GDP.

• It requires 800 gallons of water to grow one pound of pork.

• Crickets require only 1 gallon of water per pound grown. It is an edible insect and a nutritionally complete food, replete with fiber, Omega-3 fatty acids, protein, and other vitamins and minerals.

• Walnuts consume 4.9 gallons of water apiece during production.

• One gallon of water goes into each almond grown and in California 10% of all water goes to the almond industry. The water used each year to grow almonds is equivalent to three years of water for the city of Los Angeles.

• The tire industry consumes 70% of all natural rubber grown.

• Of an estimated total 700 million tons of aluminum produced in the world since commercial manufacturing began in the 1880s, about 75% is still in productive use as secondary raw material.

• The demand for a more diverse diet that includes animal protein such as meat and milk products requires more land to produce.

• Recycling one car saves more than 2,500 lbs. of iron ore, 1,400 lbs. of coal, and 120 lbs. of limestone.

• In 2012, the United States domestically recycled aluminum cans saved the energy equivalent to 19 million barrels of gasoline – enough to fuel more than 1.7 million vehicles on the road for one year.

• Each year, Americans generate approximately 300 million scrap tires. Luckily, today more than 90% of scrap tires are recycled and reused annually!

• One ton of mobile phones can contain 300 grams of gold, compared to an average ton of gold ore, which contains only five grams of gold.

• The volume of water in the atmosphere at any one time is about 3,100 cubic miles or 12,900 cubic kilometers. That may sound like a lot, but it is only about 0.001% of the total Earth’s water volume.

• Forest ecosystems store between 20 and 100 times more carbon per unit area than do croplands.

• In 2007, for the first time in history, the urban population exceeded the rural one.

• According to a fall season poll by the National Surveys on Energy and the Environment (NSEE), 70 percent of US residents believe there is solid evidence of global warming, the highest percentage reported since 2008.

• More than 8,500 wind turbines operate in Texas, generating 10.6 percent of the state’s electricity mix in 2014.

• The U.S. is 5% of the world’s population but uses 25% of its natural resources. We use one million gallons of oil every two minutes.

• One MW is enough to power about 200 homes during periods of peak demand, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator for most of the state.

• If every newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year. Unfortunately only 27% of all American newspapers are recycled.

• At least 50 million acres of rainforest are lost every year, an area equal to the size of England, Wales, and Scotland combined.

• In 2013, the United States recovered nearly 50.1 million tons of paper; that’s 315 lbs. of paper for every person in the country.

• One in four mammals is currently at risk of extinction across the globe.

• Nearly 77% of all U.S. papermakers use some recovered paper to make everything from newspaper to paper packaging to office paper.

• By using ferrous scrap rather than virgin materials in the production of iron and steel, Carbon Dioxide emissions are reduced by 58 percent.

• Airplane emissions account for about 3% of the United States’ total CO2 emissions. The U.S. is responsible for nearly half of worldwide CO2 emissions from aircraft and aircraft emissions are expected to more than triple by mid-century.

• Trees cover an estimated 20.9 million acres of urban land in the continental United States. That’s 3,659 square feet of urban forest per city dweller—about the size of a not-so-modest four-bedroom house.

• About 14 billion pounds of trash are dumped into the ocean every year.

• The world’s tallest tree is a coast redwood in California, measuring more than 360 feet or 110 meters.

• Approximately 5 million tons of oil produced in the world each year ends up in the ocean.

• During the time it takes you to read this sentence, 50 thousand 12-ounce aluminum cans are made.

• The World Bank estimates that 20% of global industrial water pollution is the result of the treatment and dying of textiles. With 25% of all chemicals produced worldwide being used for textiles, fashion is the #2 polluter of clean water on the planet.

• It will take a styrofoam cup at least 50 years to biodegrade naturally.

• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours.

• A leaky faucet that fills a coffee cup in 10 minutes will waste an estimated 3,000 gallons of water per year.

• A full bathtub requires about 70 gallons of water, while taking a 5-minute shower uses only 10 to 25 gallons.

• The U.S. uses 100 billion plastic bags annually, consuming about 12 million barrels of oil. Less than 1% of plastic bags are ever recycled.

• The average U.S. citizen uses 50 pounds of tissue paper per year. Try to buy the highest content of post-consumer recycled content, looking for either 100% recycled or FSC certified tissue or toilet paper.

• According to the U.S. EPA, about 40% of heavy metals including lead, mercury, and cadmium in landfills comes from electronic equipment and discards.

• The refrigerator is the single biggest energy-consuming kitchen appliance. Opening hte door accounts for between $30 and $60 of a typical family’s electricity bill each year.

• In North America, fruits and vegetables travel an average of 1,500 miles before reaching your plate. Buying fresh, local food eliminates long distances traveled and preserves flavor and nutrients.

• 190 Million Cubic Yards of contaminated soil and groundwater cleanup commitments secured, enough to fill the Empire State Building more than 138 times.

• Letting your faucet run for 5 minutes uses about as much energy as a 60-watt light bulb consumes in 14 hours.

• Improperly sealed or caulked windows can account for up to 25% of total heat loss from a house.

• Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) are an energy-saving alternative to incandescent bulbs – they produce the same amount of light, use 1/3 of the electricity and last up to 10 times as long.

• 62 billion – Pounds of hazardous waste that enforcement actions require companies to address.

• U.S. consumers spend up to 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than for tap water.

• 10,000 tonnes of fish from the oceans every hour.

• (90 to 95 million tonnes a year) – are having devastating effects on both the fish targeted and virtually all other marine creatures, from seabirds to coral.

• EPA accounts for just 0.22 percent, or $8 billion, of a $4 trillion federal budget.

• Longline fishing bycatch rates are as high as 50% of non-target species.

• Each year, longline fishing, kills over 300,000 seabirds, including 100,000 albatrosses.

• The DOE notes that the relatively simple task of replacing and cleaning air filters can reduce an air conditioners’ energy consumption by as much as 15 percent.

• The Dallas-based specialty food division of H-E-B has cooked up an idea to turn fresh on its head with leafy greens and butter lettuce still attached to the roots and technically still alive.

• According to the U.S. Department of Energy, air conditioners cost homeowners more than $29 billion a year in energy cost.

• More than 20,000,000 Hershey’s Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of tinfoil – all that foil is recyclable!

• Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees.

• By heating agar, pouring it into moulds and then freezing it, the team was able to make a selection of plastic-like products and packaging.

• Easily extracted by boiling red algae, agar is used to make confectionery in Japan,. In a project called Agar Plasticity, the Tokyo-based design collective AMAM suggested that the gelatinous substance could be a viable plastic alternative.

• Only around 9 per cent of plastic gets recycled.

• The bulk of the mushroom’s body consists of mass of underground filaments called mycelium. By employing mycelia grown on agricultural waste.

• As much as 13 million tones of plastic enters the ocean globally each year – equivalent to the mass of around 85,000 blue whales.

• Up to one trillion plastic bags are discarded every year too.

• The hulking Gallatin Fossil Plant sits on a scenic bend of the Cumberland River about 30 miles upstream from Nashville. In addition to generating electricity, the plant, built in the early 1950s by the Tennessee Valley Authority, produces more than 200,000 tons of coal residue a year. That coal ash, mixed with water and sluiced into pits and ponds on the plant property, has been making its way into groundwater and the river.

• Of the 44 dark-sky parks around the world, 5 are in Texas.

• Cost to remove CO2 from atmosphere, all of the bad CO2 is $20 trillion… Cost to clean Earth is $100 trillion.

• New bottles are made from only 6.6 per cent recycled plastic.

• As of 2015, 8.3 billion tonnes of plastics have been produced by humans since the early 1950s.

• According to one estimate, this plastic soup covers an area twice the size of the continental United States.

• By 2050, the total amount of plastic produced by humankind is projected to have risen to 34 billion tonnes.

• In the UK this year a ban is coming into force for even products such as sunscreen and make-up, so read ingredients lists.

• Chewing gum is made from synthetic rubber- a plastic – and shockingly around 100,000 tones of the stuff is discarded every year.

• Americans use about 50 billion plastic water bottles a year. However, the U.S.’s recycling rate for plastic is only around 23 percent, which means 38 billion water bottles – more than $1 billion worth of plastic – are wasted each year.

• By heating plastic in a controlled way, coupled with a catalyst, it is possible to produce fuel that doesn’t even need refining and is ready to use.
• According to the Sierra Club, a 612-pound endangered bluefin tuna sells for $3.1 million at Tokyo’s fish market. 
• According to the Sierra Club, autopsies of 50 stranded sea mammals in Britain find micro plastics in all of them.
• According to the Sierra Club, two days of temperatures topping 107°F kill one-third of Australia’s spectacled flying foxes.
• According to the Sierra Club, by altering the types and distribution of phytoplankton, global warming is change the colors of the oceans, making blues bluer and greens greener. 
• According to the Sierra Club, Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s largest utility, seeks bankruptcy protection from damage claims after the state’s recent wildfires, including the $7 billion in claims from the Camp Fire.
• According to the Sierra Club, the past five years have been the hottest five years in recorded history.