A Balance with Nature
An optimistic resource for actionable items to lessen our impact on the environment. From the smallest of spiders to the most mammoth creatures of land and sea, they all share a common thread, they leave behind a humble, yet valuable footprint for their time spent on the earth. Trying to make eco-friendly decisions in our own lives can help minimize humankind’s harmful impact on the oceans, waterways, nature and all life that the earth sustains.
To find simple ways to lessen your impact visit Action Resources page.
FAST FACTS
“A whopping 91% of plastic isn’t recycled……The vast majority—79 percent—is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter. Meaning: at some point, much of it ends up in the oceans, the final sink.”
"Because, right now, the plastic industry pollutes our rivers and oceans in almost unbelievably flagrant ways."
“More than 1,200 species are impacted by plastic, through ingestion or entanglement—both of which can sicken or even kill them. Birds, fish, turtles, dolphins, sharks and even whales can be poisoned or trapped by plastic waste. And all animals (including humans) depend on the ocean for food and a healthy ecosystem that maintains the balance of greenhouse gases. Scientists agree: If the oceans die, we die.”
- Plastic Pollution and Animals | The 5 Gyre Institute
“The next time you think it’s fine to buy plastics because they can be recycled, remember it’s a (usually) one-and-done process.”
- How Many Times Can That Be Recycled? | Audrey Holmes | Earth 911 | June 15th, 2017
"The consumers are doing a lot of things, but if you as a consumer are going to the supermarket and you are unable to buy something which is not wrapped in plastic it's not your fault. You are a person. It's companies; companies need to take the step, need to lead the change -- and governments need to push the companies.
"For the oceans to recover to we need to stop them (plastics) now. If we are thinking we can stop them in 10 years, we can phase them out, no: we need to stop single-use plastic. Then the seas will have time to clean up."
“Plastics attract and store persistent organic pollutants like flame retardants and other industrial chemicals…… A single plastic microbead can be 1 million times more toxic tan the water around it.”
- Plastic Pollution and Animals | The 5 Gyre Institute
“Plastic takes 400 years to degrade.”
“Glass and metals, including aluminum, can effectively be recycled indefinitely, without a loss of quality.”
- 5 recycling myths busted | Brian Clark Howard | National Geographic | October 31st, 2018
“The average piece of virgin printer paper can now be recycled five to seven times before the fibers get too degraded to be useful as new paper. After that, they can still be made into lower-grade paper-based materials like egg cartons or packaging inserts.”
- 5 recycling myths busted | Brian Clark Howard | National Geographic | October 31st, 2018
“Only around 9% of plastic produced has ever been recycled. Most single-use plastics end up in landfills or are burned in huge toxic fires. Some finds its way into our rivers or the oceans, either flushed into water systems or blown by wind currents. "This goes into the food chain." Ojeda explains. "The fish and shrimps eat the plastic, we are eating them or the fish that eat them, and this will end up in our bodies somehow."“
“If we keep producing (and failing to properly dispose of) plastics at predicted rates, plastics in the ocean will outweigh fish pound for pound in 2050.”
“Fighting climate change needs multiple actions from multiple different fronts, ….Only if we combine them all can we make the future “not entirely miserable.”
“Up to one million plant and animal species face extinction, many within decades, because of human activities, says the most comprehensive report yet on the state of global ecosystems.
Without drastic action to conserve habitats, the rate of species extinctions—already tens to hundreds of times higher than the average across the last ten million years—will only increase, says the analysis by a United Nations-backed panel, the International Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
The report also finds that agricultural activities have had the largest impacts on ecosystems that people depend on for food, clean water and a stable climate. The loss of species and habitats is as much a danger to life on Earth as climate change, says a summary of the report released on 6 May.”
The question plaguing scientists is this: Is climate change happening too fast for animals to save themselves—and their future offspring—by adapting quickly?
“Our passion for meat involves over 60 billion land animals that require nearly half of all agricultural land for food and pasture. Livestock emissions, including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, are responsible for an estimated 18 to 20 percent of greenhouse gases annually, a source second only to fossil fuels. If you add to livestock all other food-related emissions - from farming to deforestation to food waste - what we eat turns out to be the number one cause of global warming.”
- Drawdown | Edited by Paul Hawken | Penguin Books | New York | Copyright 2017 | p. 37
