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- Dot Earth Blog: A Plan to Bring Sun-Powered Irrigation to Poor Farmers
- Drop in U.S. underground water levels has accelerated: USGS
- Powerful tornadoes strike in four central U.S. states
- A Tornado Chaser Talks About His Science and Craft
- Why Did Penguins Stop Flying? The Answer Is Evolutionary
- Scientist at Work Blog: Thwarted by Moonlight
- Playing Russian Roulette With a Volcano
- U.S. pesticide makers seek answers as bee losses sting agriculture
- Dot Earth Blog: Who's Escaping Climate Change 'Mire and Muck'?
Green Facts
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A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.
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Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.
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An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!
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The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.
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It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.
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Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.
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You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.
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Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.
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Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.
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You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.
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For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.
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Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.
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If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.
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Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.
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Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
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Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.
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77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.
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Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
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Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.
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One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.
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Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.
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Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.
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In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.
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Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.
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Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.
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Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months
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Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.
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States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.
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You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.
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Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.
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Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.
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82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.
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Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.
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A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.
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In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.
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A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.
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A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.
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American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.
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Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.



Earth Day 2013 is just around the corner, coming up on April 22nd! Have you sent in a photo yet? This year the official theme of Earth Day is “The Face of Climate Change.” The Earth Day Network is collecting photographs that highlight the growing impact that climate change is...

On average, the annual consumption of electricity in the United States per utility customer was 11,280 kWh in 2011, while the average per capita electricity use in Africa as an entire continent was about 570 kWh over the year in 2010. The U.S. uses more electricity than any nation except...
There are currently over seven billion humans living on this planet and researchers fear that we may be reaching our carrying capacity. The idea of humans reaching our capacity is not a new idea, however. The theory originated from the pessimist Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), who...
The controversial drilling technique of hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as “fracking,” has created an oil and gas boom across the United States. Many states including New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wyoming and Texas, have all seen heated debates about whether the economic benefits of fracking outweigh the risks to groundwater and public health...
The fiscal cliff, Yes We Can!, and Gangnam Style all have something in common…they are what is known as “memes.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary online defines a meme as, "an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.” On the Internet, memes are usually...
If you ask someone on the street what comes to mind when you said the words “Green Party,” most likely they would say Ralph Nader and then give you a blank stare. A few people, still bitter about the 2000 presidential election, might scoff and throw in the word “spoiler.” But popular knowledge about the Green Party belies a fascinating history.
It was 50 years ago that a book spurred the first major environmental movement in the United States. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring hit the book stores on September 27, 1962 to catalogue the hazardous effects of the pesticide DDT—banned 10 years later in the U.S. — and questioned...
Although Australia ranks as the sixteenth highest greenhouse gas emitting country on earth, it is an embarrassing 7th in per person metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Indeed, Australia has the highest per person pollution rates of all developed nations, including the...
Twenty years ago, delegates from around the world gathered in a crowded conference center beneath the watchful eye of Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 1992 Rio conference ended with the ratification of a Convention on Biological Diversity, a Convention to Combat Desertification...
On March 25, 2012, crewmembers on the French oil company Total’s Elgin drilling platform noticed that something was amiss. One of the wells at the site had been plugged in 2011, but for unknown reasons natural gas had begun to spew out of the wellhead. Soon, about 200,000 cubic...
The information and communications technologies sector (ICTs) accounts for roughly 2% of global carbon emissions. If it were a country, it would rank 5th in terms of total emissions. As a sector, it roughly compares with the airline sector, but is experiencing increased growth and is expected...
Science textbooks in every grade-school classroom will tell you that we are currently living in the Holocene geologic epoch…but this probably won’t be the case for very much longer. Many of the world’s leading scientists propose that the Earth has now entered a new geological...
This year’s Earth Day theme, “Mobilize The Earth,” superbly captures one of the emerging trends of the environmental movement. For the first Earth Day in 1970, Founder Senator Nelson chose the date April 22 because it would not interfere with college students’ academic, social or...
Every year, tens of millions of tons of oil products are shipped through the Panama Canal. But despite the important role Panama plays in the transportation of oil around the world, it has very few energy resources to add to the shipments that pass through its backyard. Due to this...
A few years ago, Greeniacs brought us great news regarding the first wave of 21st century bike-sharing programs in the United States. Building off previous programs that had failed in their attempts to essentially give out free bikes, Washington, DC launched SmartBike DC. Enabled...
Even die-hard environmentalists don't demand that police officers make the safety of the environment their top priority. This is because we want and expect the police to prioritize human safety! When it comes down to it, we all worry more about our safety – and our friends' and family's safety – than the safety of a tree or a mockingbird. Remarkably...
As the summer of 2011 winds down, the 2012 Olympics – set to launch in London on July 27 – seem pretty far off. But for the organizing and planning teams behind the massive event, many of which have been at work on the Games for five years or more, next summer can’t come soon enough. So far, just about everything is going according to plan...
The basic framework of this debate has been covered over and over by the media, but few reports have delved deeper into the issue to look at the specific tax breaks that exist, when they were created, and how much money they are worth to oil companies. That information is exactly what you will find below, and hopefully it will...
It was the 1960s, the age of the post-WWII consumer frenzy, of atomic explosions, of leaded gasoline, and the Vietnam War. The air pollution in Los Angeles was so bad that breathing it was the equivalent of smoking 2.5 packs of cigarettes per day. There was a lot to complain about, and this state of the environment gave rise to environmentalism...
In an era of great environmental uncertainty, and at a pivotal point in time when nations will decide the earth’s fate, Earth Day comes as a welcome reminder of our role in the global environmental movement. Just over forty years ago, during a time of revolutionary environmental legislation in the United States, Earth Day was added to our...
Picking up where we left off in Part I of our Art and the Environment series, art reflects humanity's changing perception of nature's relationship with God and living beings here on Earth. For centuries, European artists drew and sculpted humans and religious figures in indoor settings. Nature was...
Art came before writing and even speech—art was humankind’s first expression of its relationship with nature. Art and the environment is such a huge topic that we will have a two-part discussion on it, so read up here for Part I and then look to Part II coming soon! The first homo sapiens adorned their bodies, then their tools. The earliest...
At the time of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, I was interning in Washington D.C. with the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Once word of the leaking oil got out, government reports put estimates of the spill at 1,000 barrels per day, then 5,000 bl/day a few days later—a number repeated in the media ad nauseum. On the other side...
The Swim for Clean Water… Located in the Pacific Northwest, the Columbia River is an intensely cold glacial water source with a lot of history, much of which has been drowned by industrial and hydropower damage. The documentary written, directed and produced by Andy Norris, called Source to Sea: The Columbia River Swim, deals with a variety...
Sicily Not Willing To Jeopardize Its Biggest Asset… Each year thousands of people from around the world vacation on the majestic coastline of Sicily. Known for its breathtakingly clear waters, rich marine life and incredible foods and wines, Sicily is considered one of the top tourist destinations in the entire world. And Sicily is fully aware of it. The BP Gulf of...
The BP oil spill was a rare, catastrophic event unlike any other oil spill. For starters, it’s the largest oil spill in United States history. While most oil spills have been caused by collisions of ships carrying oil, the BP oil spill was caused by a large blowout. Such a large blowout, or a fire-starting explosion from oil drilling, hasn’t...
When thinking about the state of our environment, it is hard to look past all the disasters that keep occurring in the world. However, there are some remarkable people working hard to bring these issues to the public, to make all of us more conscious of Mother Earth. On April 20, 2010, The Daily Green and Home Depot sponsored an event called...
All around the world, 20 to 25 million people have been forced out of their homes, almost completely due to natural forces out of their control.1 As high as the number of environmental refugees currently is, climate change is expected to vastly increase that amount to around 150 million by 2050.2 Hurricanes, monsoons, droughts, and floods will become more frequent and more destructive. Rising temperatures will worsen desertification. Rising sea levels not only threaten to flood...
The Environment’s Worst Offenders… While going green has become better for the corporate bottom line across the United States, there are still times when circumventing environmental laws and regulations maximizes margins. Below are four corporate criminals who shirked environmental responsibility when it became too costly...
We at Greeniacs love the natural world. We work everyday to uphold our environmental values and protect Mother Earth. We are outraged when the environment suffers because of corporate irresponsibility, as is currently the case with BP’s oil spill crisis in the Gulf. Still, there is a line between passion for the environment and zealotry...
With the worlds’ current dependency on oil, our environment continues to pay the price for the demand. On April 20, 2010 a BP oil rig caught on fire, exploded, and then later sank about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana. Not only did this disaster leave at least 11 people presumably dead, but it will also continue to leave a lasting impact...
Smog, the cloud’s ugly, earthborn sister, is formed when pollutants combine with sunlight, creating what are called particulate matter and Ground-level Ozone. It afflicts many of the world’s major metropolitan areas, and its effects range from irritating to deadly. In London’s Great Fog of 1952, for example, as many of 12,000 people—yes...
Although comprehensive recycling programs are increasing in popularity throughout most cities across the United States, the volume of garbage produced in cities continues to outweigh the volume of waste recycled there. Currently, the U.S. creates over 250 million tons of municipal waste each year and only 32.5% of that waste is sent...
By 2009, 184 countries signed the treaty with plans to minimize the effects of global warming. However, with the treaty expiring in 2012, we could be left without a concrete international agenda to help prevent climate change. Concerned countries, like Denmark and the United Nations, realized this and created the Climate Change...
Every time a G20 Summit is held, tens of thousands of protesters, each seemingly fighting for a different cause, show up to voice their contempt for this global meeting. But for all the reasons globalization is protested, including the spread of capitalism, the exploitation of cheap labor, protectionism, etc., perhaps the most asserted is...
On the last days of September of 2009, the United States Senate presented a renovated bill from the House of Representatives to Congress called the Senate Climate Bill (SCB). The aim of the legislation is to boost the green economy through investment in energy technology. The authors behind the bill, who include California Senator Barbara...
In spite of the nay-sayers, the Doubter Debbies of the world who resist the displacement of dirty fuels and who swear that global warming is a myth, the shift towards a green-conscious future cannot be helped. Almost a half a century ago, the peregrination towards Earth Day began as environmental cognizance took hold in the hearts of the...
It seems to me that every city has an excuse for why it is not going green. Big business and governments alike complain that switching too fast to renewable energy sources will cause a sag in the already sagging economy, that reducing emissions by x-percent below some year's levels is not possible, that environmentalists are asking...
My granddad used to tell me that “old habits die hard,” and that if I wanted to make a personal metamorphosis that it would take hard work and constant consciousness of my actions. For some cities in the world, the same is true for environmental action. Whether a city’s start lied in the era of coal mining or its history a time piece of...
Here's a little test: Google “cruise ships and the environment” and tell me what pops up on the browser first. Cruise liners discussing the breathtaking views you'll see while you sail off to Alaska? Or perhaps pictures of the vibrant reefs seen while scuba diving in the Bahamas? Sure these both fit the description, but most likely you'll...
An ideal human world would boast zero emissions, but we are a species whose livelihood depends on the consumption of energy. We use energy and we use a lot of it, and simple physics tells us that what come in must some how come out one way or another, and our form of energy exhale is usually in some sort of harmful green house gas emission...
In the United States, we generate over 400 million tons of trash each year. Some of that waste biodegrades, some of that waste can be recycled, but some of it sits around for hundreds of years with nowhere to go. Some of the most stubborn waste is plastic. Americans alone throw out about 60 million plastic water bottles everyday, use about...
Striving for carbon neutrality is an ongoing international battle whose importance is shown though its ubiquitous media coverage. Nonetheless, gaining this enhanced public knowledge system has been and continues to be an arduous road. While global warming has become the popular quagmire of the late 20th and early 21st century, the beginning came...
Everyone's heard about global warming, but relatively few people have heard about global dimming. What is global dimming? Substantial parts of the world are actually dimmer, i.e., less light, darker, than they were several decades ago due to air pollution.The United States, for example, is about 10% dimmer, while parts of the former...
Volunteering not only means that you are performing charity work in an altruistic and selflessness fashion; volunteering has a whole new meaning in this day and age. Consider volunteering as something you do for people who are not as fortunate as yourself, think of it as an exchange of ideas and a cultural experience. Being a volunteer, a person...
It's no secret that eco-friendly practices and lifestyles are gaining popularity around the world. However, more people want to do good for the environment not only on their own, but within entire towns and cities centered around sustainable living. Unified by using collective means to do environmental good, these “ecovillages” are actually...
If you spend any time around children or teenagers—as an educator, a parent, a nanny, a sibling or even as a friend—you probably understand the impact that education can have on young people. If you have any interest in environmental issues, at the individual, federal, or global level, you probably understand the impact that everyday...
The hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics Games has been a hot bed for controversy. As the host country China, in the heat of its industrial revolution, boasts almost 20% of the world’s total population, the environmental impact of its heavily populated hosting-city Beijing, has provoked its fair share of global concern. Before the start of...
This is a story of a woman who planted trees. Sounds pretty quaint, doesn't it? Well, truthfully, Professor Wangari Maathai's story is about as far from quaint and as close to heroic as a human can get! Maathai comes from a small village in Kenya and is the founder of the Green Belt Movement. The Green Belt Movement is an organization that...