Why Conserve

"First, I worry about climate change. It's the only thing that I believe has the power to fundamentally end the march of civilization as we know it, and make a lot of the other efforts that we're making irrelevant and impossible." Bill Clinton

Glaciers in Greenland are sliding into the sea almost twice as fast as expected as reported in the journal Science in 2006.

In Massachusetts approximately 40 acres of open space habitat is lost to development every day.

The population of bird species are down by 70% in Massachusetts since 1967, according to a recent Massachusetts Audubon report. The cause of this decline is attributed to habitat loss and climate change.

Approximately 40 football fields of tropical forests are cleared each minute. This is putting thousands of species at risk of becoming extinct as well as contributing to climate change. Union of Concerned Scientists Earthwise Volume 9, Number 3

A typical curbside recycling program that collects steel and aluminum containers, newspapers, glass and certain kinds of plastic will eliminate, for every ton of waste processed:

• 620 pounds of carbon dioxide

• 30 pounds of methane
• 5 pounds of carbon monoxide
• 2.5 pounds of particulate matter
• soot and ash
• varying amounts of other pollutants.

Furthermore, it takes less than 25% as much energy to make aluminm cans from recycled cans as from virgin ore. Read More »

The average American uses twice as much fossil fuel as the average resident of Great Britain and consumes 3.25 pounds of meat 1.5 times as mush as the average Briton. UCS book A Consumers Guide to Effective Environmental Choice

The average American discards approximately 1 ton of trash a year, 2 to 3 times the amount a typical European throws away. UCS book A Consumers Guide to Effective Environmental Choice

Every baby born in the U.S. leads to an average lifetime production of 1 million kilograms of atmospheric wastes, 10 million kilograms of liquid wastes, one million kilograms of solid wastes and consume 700 kilograms of minerals and 24 billion BTUs of energy. A 1994 article, by the College of Environmental Science and Forestry of the State University of New York [UCS book A Consumers Guide to Effective Enviromental Choices]

But the massive ice sheets over Antarctica and Greenland are another story. If both melted completely, sea levels could rise nearly 220 ft. (72 m). That's a worst-case scenario. But the melting is accelerating, and sea levels are projected to rise gradually, threatening low-lying communities Sources: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Third Assessment Report; NOAA; NASA; National Snow and Ice Data Center; Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center; National Center for Atmospheric Research; U.S. Global Change Research Program; Goddard Institute for Space Studies