The environmental alarm is the topic of the moment all over the planet. Especially the younger ones are gathering around theSwedish activist (still a minor) Greta Thunberg, which has been making the front pages of newspapers for a week now, first with his speech at the UN assembly on climate, then with last Friday's global march, which involved millions of people in the streets and squares around the world. But exactly, beyond good intentions and gods institutional claims, however not yet so concrete and effective (in Italy, for example, there is talk of the Green New Deal but the climate decree is already the subject of controversy and slowdowns), do we have a real idea of what we are talking about? Here are some numbers, to see more clearly.
EMISSIONS
To date, this year, they have been emitted into the atmosphere 27,6 billion tons of CO2 on the planet. The oil extracted in a single day (the reference is Friday 27 September) reaches 94 million barrels. The energy consumed from non-renewable sources still clearly exceeds that from renewable sources: always taking Friday 27 September as a parameter, around the world 311.580.000 MWh of non-clean energy, against 73.085.316 MWh of clean energy. Even today, 2,3 billion people are reached by paper newspapers, a higher number than the number of people who read news on the Internet every day: 1,9 billion. On the other hand, this year they were produced 109.267.653 bicycles and only 57.068.911 Automobiles. Up to 7 million cell phones are sold on Earth in one day.
DEFORESTATION
Between 1990 and 2016 the world lost 1,3 millions of square kilometers of forests, an area equal to that of South Africa. This year alone, they were destroyed 4 million hectares of forests: since humanity started deforesting, it has lost almost half of the trees on the planet. The Present in several = 17% of the Amazon rainforest (where 10% of known animal species live and a fifth of the world's oxygen is produced) has been destroyed in the last 50 years. This year arable land (in favor of farming or building) has been eroded for 5.221.623 hectares and they joined 8.804.717 hectares of desertified areas: today the Present in several = 14% of the land is covered by deserts and the Present in several = 30% from forests (and only another 6% from rainforests).
GLACIERS AND WATER
The Earth's temperature has risen by almost one degree since the end of the XNUMXth century, and this has contributed to the melting of the glaciers: today only the Present in several = 19% of the land is covered by polar caps. From 1994 to the present, land glaciers have lost each year on average 400 billion tons of ice: Greenland alone has lost an average of 286 billion tons a year, Antarctica instead 127 billion tons a year. The oceans are also getting warmer: since 1969 the temperature has increased by 0,2% and global sea levels have risen by more than that 20 cm in 100 years. Over the past twenty years, the rate of elevation has doubled. Only the Present in several = 2,5% of the water on Earth is drinkable, and the Present in several = 70% of this is used by man for agricultural activities. They are consumed to produce a 200 g pack of coffee 2.368 liters of water, for a 60 liter aluminum can, to make a woman's jeans shorts 8.000 liters, to pack a liter of milk 1.000 litres. Every Italian consumes on average 220 liters of water per day (245 in the capitals).
ANIMALS
Of the 8 million of living species, a million it is at risk of extinction due to human activities. Today the extinction rate is hundreds of times higher than in the last 10 million years. The Present in several = 25% of marine species live in the coral reef, endangered by warming waters and rising sea levels. Plus every year 56 billion of farm animals are killed by humans.
PLASTIC AND RECYCLING
Half of the plastic existing today was produced in the last 15 years: in 1950, plastic production was 2,3 million tons, in 2015 by 448 million, and this figure is expected to double by 2050. Every year about 8 million tons of plastic waste end up in the sea, and the decomposition time of this material can be up to 400 years. Another example: it takes 100 years for a tire to degrade. Recycling them means avoiding the entry of 4,55 million of tons of tires in the environment every year, with a saving of 3.900 billion of liters of petroleum and other derivatives, and of 8,45 billion euros in the global transportation industry. In fact, pollution also has a high economic cost: the annual cost of the impact of human activities on the environment has been estimated at 4,7 trillion of dollars.
POWER
Dietary styles have a significant impact on the ecosystem (livestock farms alone are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions in the world), but also on health. One fact speaks volumes more than others: in the world today, overweight people are exactly twice as undernourished. I am indeed 1.682.615.480 people who overeat e 840.218.825 those who don't eat enough. Ergo: too much food is produced, raping the planet, and this is not distributed fairly, creating health and social justice problems. Also, a single cow consumes between 75 and 300 kg of food to produce a single kg of protein…
(The data used in this article have various sources, all verified: most of the data come from UN statistics, others from MUSE processing of Trento)
