Facts and stats

• If China, India and the other emerging markets embrace the consumerism of the western world, we would need at least three planets to provide the raw materials.
• The majority of fish populations in the world have been reduced by 70-95 %.
• 2.5 million plastic bottles an hour are disposed of in the US.
• Use of the Thames Barrier, which protects London against flooding, has increased from once every two years in the 1980s to an average six times a year over the past five years.
• Weather-related damage to communities and businesses has increased ten-fold over the last 40 years.
• An ancient ice shelf the size of Manhattan collapsed into Artic the ocean in 2006.
• Canada’s five remaining ice shelves are 90% smaller than they were 100 years ago.
• The costliest natural disaster in US history, the category 5 hurricane Katrina killed over 1.700 people and destroyed about 200,000 homes and damages are estimated at $100 billion.
• Rising sea levels have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the earth. Lohachara was once home to 10,000 people.
• This is not likely to stop, major populations will be forced inland as rising sea levels swallow coastal communities.
• Impoverished nations in the tropics will be hit by devastating food shortages.
• Droughts in Africa could become semi-permanent under climate change.
• About 160,000 people could die every year from the side-effects of global warming and the numbers could double by 2020.
• Extreme droughts will affect a third of the world.
• Species are becoming extinct 1,000 times faster than they would naturally.
• Approximately 25,000 people died from the heat wave in 2003.
• Bees are in rapid decline. Their possible extinction would be a disaster for the world, as they provide pollination for a wide number of crops and plants. Defra (Department for environmental food and rural affairs) is to spend £10 million on tackling bee decline.

Some of you may find this information overwhelming, and that is the desired effect. We need to act now, we need to change our way of living if we are to continue living on this planet. We are the generation that can make the difference, spread the word, encourage people to take action. With the ever increasing global population, problems will just get worse. It is up to each and every one of us to make the steps towards a more sustainable life, and remember no step is too little. And even if there are still sceptics out there who don't believe in global warming, then the facts about China and India should be enough to show that we are nearing the end of the earth's natural resources so we have to become less dependent, and reduce, reuse and recycle.