Our planet is the one home that every human needs to take care of. If we ruin our ecosystem with greed, excess, pollution and laziness we will literally destroy all of humanity. Either we need to get set up on Mars ASAP or get real about our individual impact on the environment. This graphic put together by a team at playgroundequipment shows 26 scary real-life statistics that show where the planet is headed. The top ten facts are as follows:
1) We would need 1.77 planet Earths to sustain our current demand for resources and absorb our waste. This is referred to as global ecological overshoot.
2) Twelve million hectares of tropical rainforest are destroyed each year. That is around 30 football fields per minute.
3) Every minute, the equivalent of one dump truck of plastic is dumped into oceans.
4) 16 tons per minute: Sixteen tons of sewage are dumped into American waters every 60 seconds.
5) 2050: By 2050, there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean.
6) By 2048, saltwater fish could run out if nothing changes.
7) One in four fish sampled at fish markets in California and Indonesia contained plastic.
8) Global sea levels have risen 8 inches in the past century. However, the rate of increase has nearly doubled in just the past two decades and is accelerating more each year.
9) If deforestation continues at the same rate, rainforests will no longer exist in 79 years.
10) In July of 2019, there were 28% more wildfires in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest compared to the previous year. Deforestation is the main culprit.
Infographic by: playgroundequipment
