American Goldfinch
Splendid Sunbird
Tufted Coquette
Bohemian Waxwing
Northern Royal Flycatcher
Collared Aracari
American Kestrel
Colorful Mandarin Ducks
Golden Headed Cisticola
Rare Albino Hummingbird
1. So Many Bad Deeds for So Little Time
According to scientific assumptions the Earth exists for 4.6 billion years. Scaling this to 46 years we come to 46 years of existence, which means that humanity have been around for four hours, while the industrial revolution has began only one minute ago. In such short time of environment-predating madness we have managed to destroy great variety of species and endanger a lot of those which have not been extinct yet, just in order to get to raw materials and fuels.
2. Population Growth
In that short time the industrial revolution has also caused an amazing growth of population. In last 50 years it has grown more than the previous four million years. The number of one billion was reached in 19thcentury, while today there are almost seven billion people on Earth. The estimations say that we could reach the number of nine billion until 2050. If food is problem today, it’s not easy to imagine what a problem it would be after 40 years from now.
3. The Wall Street Bailout
The Wall Street bailout reached over $700 billion and still grows. Only 4% of that could end the world hunger. There is a well known old Chinese saying: “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.” According to that, this is not the right solution for the problem, but there are indications which show that only $30 billion per year are needed for creating and implementing programs that could help toward solving this issue.
4. Pharmacy Purchases
The next of the most interesting Environmental Facts is related to the pills and other medications in pharmacy stores which have been made from some exotic plants. One in every four purchases comes from the rainforests. With reducing the deforestation of rainforests there will be a lot more plants available for pills producing. Unfortunately, we have lost over a half of them already.
5. Australia’s Geothermal Energy
Only 1% of the untapped geothermal energy potential in Australia could be enough for next 26,000 years, providing optimism for the future. We can not use that energy yet, but the Australian government invests a lot in green technologies recently and announced that this one won’t be excluded. They hope to be able to use up to 40% of that until 2020.
6. Too Much Chemicals in Homes
When we talk about chemicals that “hurt” the soil, we usually point finger to the farmers who use pesticides and other chemicals that destroy the soil. However, it’s good to know that the homeowners use ten times more chemicals per acre than them. It is yet another proves that saving the planet doesn’t mean necessary change of the agriculture politics, among others, but we could do so much more with just a little change in our lifestyle.
7. Cars vs. Public Transport
According to the US Department of Transportation Americans use 140 million cars to travel almost four billion miles everyday, using over 200 million gallons of gasoline for that. However, United States keep promoting and investing in private cars instead of public transportation, despite these numbers.
8. Fake Development Credits
Many banks offer credits to the countries that need it in order to develop their economies. If one see the amounts of money that these countries receive, it would be hard to understand why they’re still undeveloped. The answer is very simple: they have to use their natural resources in order to pay off the debts and the interest that comes from them. Of course, they do that irrationally and cause even bigger problems.
9. Too Little Air in China
Actually, I am not sure if there is air in China’s biggest cities. In fact, only 1% of the 560 million city residents in China breathe air that is considered to be safe according to the standards of the European Union. The cancer have become reason no.1 for deaths, but things become even worse, as clouds of polluted air reach the skies of Japan and Korea as well, causing acid rains.
10. environment Is Reversible
Finally, we can say something positive about these interesting Environmental Facts. All these things could be much better: we can renovate buildings and turn them into greener places, clean rivers, restore habitats and return species there, replant forests, help development countries with the money that we do not need too much; environment is reversible and could be in better condition. However, we still need to do the hardest step forward – changing our awareness.
Spritzing a sunscreen ingredient into the stratosphere could help counteract the effects of global warming, according to scientists behind an ambitious new geoengineering project.
The plan involves using high-altitude balloons to disperse millions of tons of titanium dioxide—a nontoxic chemical found in sunscreen as well as in paints, inks, and even food.
Once in the atmosphere, the particles would spread around the planet and reflect some of the sun's rays back into space.
About three million tons of titanium dioxide—spread into a layer around a millionth of a millimeter thick—would be enough to offset the warming effects caused by a doubling of today's atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, according to project leader and chemical engineer Peter Davidson.
The idea was inspired by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines, said Davidson, head of the U.K. consulting firm Davidson Technology.
That eruption spewed 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, which formed a fine mist of sulfuric acid that reduced global temperatures by about a quarter of a degree Fahrenheit (half a degree Celsius) for two years.
But while sulfuric acid degrades the ozone layer and may trigger droughts, titanium dioxide is nontoxic, stable in air, and seven times more effective at scattering light, Davidson said.
For Davidson's project, a slurry containing titanium dioxide would be pumped skyward via flexible pipes, which would be hoisted aboard unmanned balloons flying about 12 miles (20 kilometers) high. A "hypersonic nozzle" would then spray the slurry as fine particles into Earth's upper atmosphere.
The balloons would be launched from ships or islands located in equatorial regions where storms are infrequent, to reduce the risk of lightning strikes and strong winds damaging the balloons, Davidson said.
Other people have proposed similar projects to cool Earth by intentionally scattering particles high in the air. (See "Extreme Global Warming Fix Proposed: Fill the Skies With Sulfur.")
What's new about Davidson's plan is the use of titanium dioxide and the balloon-dispersal system, which could make the effort cheaper than using previously suggested aircraft or rockets, said Rob Jackson, an environmental scientist at Duke University in North Carolina.
In any particle-dispersion system, "the biggest expense is getting the chemical up into the stratosphere," said Jackson, who is not involved in the new project.
And if such a project is deployed, it will need to be kept running for as long as atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, remain high.
"We have to keep doing this until we go carbon negative," Jackson said. Considering the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions are being reduced, "we could be in this business for centuries."
Project leader Davidson estimates that his balloon dispersal system would cost between U.S. $800 million and $950 million a year, plus $2 billion to $3 billion annually for the titanium dioxide.
