Why Should We Care?

Some of the most important challenges facing the world today include:

• Alleviating poverty, especially in rural communities, where the majority of the world’s poor live.
• Improving the ability of all countries, particularly developing countries, to meet the challenges of globalization, including greater capacity building and the transfer of financing and environmentally friendly technologies.
• Promoting responsible consumption and production patterns, to reduce waste and over-reliance on natural resources.
• Ensuring that all people have access to the energy sources needed to improve their lives.
• Reducing environment-related health problems that account for many of the illnesses in the world today.
• Improving access to clean water, to reach those who today must rely on unsafe and unsanitary sources to raise their children and maintain their livelihoods.
• Measuring the real impacts of global warming. What are the true causes of global warming trends and what are the long-term results of climate change?

From: World Summit on Sustainable Development brochure, 2002

What we do each day has important impacts on:

• the air we breath, the water we drink, the food we eat, the environment around us that we enjoy and gain benefits from,
• the quality of life for us and for those less fortunate,
• community/family relations,
• human core values, and
• even our national security.

Did you know that around our World:

• Every day 24,000 people die of malnutrition – half of them children. (http://www.thehungersite.com/cgi- bin/WebObjects/CTDSites.woa/443/wo/KJ0000fp600Nv000yc/3.0.49.1.0.1.0.1.0.CustomContentLinkDisplayComponent.0.0)
• Approximately 1.2 billion people – one out of six people worldwide - suffer from water-related diseases. Polluted water is the main reason for illness and death in developing countries. (http://www.unep.org/wed/2003/keyfacts.htm)
• Globally, 79 million tons of the cereal production, 42 million tons of fruits and 64 million tons of vegetables were wasted in 2000. (http://apps.fao.org/page/form?collection=CBD.CropsAndProducts&Domain= CBD&servlet=1&language= EN&hostname=apps.fao.org&version=default)
• 186 million children under the age of 14 are engaged in forced or hazardous labor. (http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/decl/download/global3/part1chapter2.pdf)
• Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds. Malaria is both a disease of poverty and a cause of poverty. (http://www.who.int/inf-fs/en/fact094.html)
• Species are becoming extinct many times faster than the natural rate, largely due to the rampant destruction of tropical rain forests. Consider that the cure for your child’s rare disease could have been found in a recently extinct tropical rainforest plant! (http://www.unep.org/geo/geo3/english/221.htm)
• Increased transmission of disease, sea level rise, and more extreme weather are all projected consequences of massive fossil fuel consumption and resulting global temperature rise. (http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/wg2SPMfinal.pdf)
• A recent five-year study has shown that children exposed to toxic pesticides have a noted decrease in mental ability and heightened aggressivity. (Montague, P. 1997. Toxins and Violent Crime. Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly #551. [online] URL: http://www.rachel.org.)

….. and in the United States:

• Although the US has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, we use 25 to 35% of the world’s resources and produce 25% of the world’s waste (Hartman, T. 1997. Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. Mythical Books, Northfield, VT. pg. 53; http://production.investis.com/bp/ia/stat/#).
• 133 million Americans breathe air that exceeds the pollution level set by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. (http://www.epa.gov/oar/aqtrnd01/sixpoll.html)
• 40 percent of U.S. waterways assessed to date are considered too polluted for safe fishing and swimming. (http://www.epa.gov/305b/2000report/factsheet.pdf )
• 82 different species of fish in North American waters are threatened or even endangered due to over-fishing and pollution. This is severely disturbing our aquatic ecosystems and costing billions of dollars in subsidies each year. (http://fisheries.org/media/press_releases/pr111600stocks.shtml)
• The average American uses nine times more water per day (170 gallons/day) than the average British citizen. (http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_db/index.cfm?theme=2&CFID=332262&CFTOKEN=95457734)
• Millions of animals in factory farms are kept in small cages or stalls, often unable to turn around or even to lie down. (http://www.animalalliance.ca/kids/facfar1.htm)
• The head of lettuce you purchase in your local supermarket has traveled an average of 1,200 miles from where it was grown and used more energy in transportation and packaging than growing. (Ryan, J.C. 1997. Stuff - The Secret Lives of Everyday Things. Northwest Environmental Watch, Seattle, WA. pg. 57)
• The annual electric bill to operate all the exit signs in the U.S. is $1 billion. By installing cost-effective L.E.D. lights, we could reduce this bill by over 80% and eliminate tons of pollutants simultaneously. (Hempel, M. 2000. Tendency does not have to be destiny. Population Press 6(1): 3.)
• If the American population would cut its beef consumption by only 10% per year, enough grain would be saved to feed 60 million people around the world. (Brown, L.R., M. Renner, and B. Halweil. 1999. Vital Signs in 1999: The Environmental Trends that are Shaping Our Future. WorldWatch Institute, Washington, DC. pg. 34; Robbins, J. 1987. Diet for a New America. H.J. Kramer, Inc., Tiburon, CA. pg. 352.)
• Women who eat fish from Lake Ontario (North America) have higher levels of PCBs and pesticides in their breast milk than women who don’t. (http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/1999/05/05111999/ontfish_ 3129.as