10 Shocking Facts About Our World

Surprising environmental statistics that affect us all, from teen allowance to oil spills and credit card spending.

January 6, 2010 at 11:50am by Jeff Yeager 

When you write about money and the environment for a living, you're constantly bombarded by related facts, figures and other interesting stuff. It seems like a day doesn't pass without someone emailing me a press release about how much CO2 is released via cow flatulence every year, or how much money you could save by heating your home with cow chips. Come to think of it, maybe I'm just on some type of All Bovine News list serve.

Last year I decided to keep track of some of the most interesting eco-facts (as in ecological as well as economical) I ran across, and start a new annual tradition: The Green Cheapskate's Top 10 Shocking Eco Stats of the Year. Here goes:

10. The organization Environmental Defense says that U.S. cars and trucks emit 314 metric tons of CO2 every year, and -- in case you were wondering -- that's equivalent to burning as much coal as would fit in a 50,000 mile long freight train. Gosh, I'd hate to be stuck at a railroad crossing waiting for that one to pass.

9. Remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill? Thank God something like that hasn't happened again. Sorry, but according to the National Academy of Sciences, on average there are 27 oil spills every day somewhere in the waters of the worlds, and the Valdez spill doesn't even make the list of the top 30 all-time largest.

8. But now for some good news about oil: The American Petroleum Institute (API) tells us that if the government would lift those silly environmental restrictions and allow the petrol industry to drill everywhere, there's enough oil right here in the U.S. to fuel 60 million cars and trucks for 60 years! Unfortunately, API seems to forget to mention that there are already more than 250 million cars and trucks in the U.S. Somehow "drill baby drill" doesn't sound like the lifesaver API claims it is when you know all the fossil fuel facts.

7. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men, "Credit cards? You can't handle the credit cards!" Apparently that's true for most Americans. BankRate.com says that people who pay for fast food using a credit card spend approximately 50% more than those who buy their burgers with cash. And the average purchase on a credit card ends up costing 112% more (that's right, more than double) because most people fail to pay off their cards monthly. So according to Bankrate, a $1,000 charge on an average card will take almost 22 years to pay, and will cost more than $2,300 in interest ($3,300 total) -- if only 2% minimum payments are made.

6. Man, have weekly allowances ever increased since I was a kid. According to an Associated Press article, American kids between the ages of 12 and 19 now spend about $179 billion annually. That translates into more than $100 per teen per week.

5. Maybe kids these days are raking in the big bucks by mowing neighborhood lawns. According to the U.S. EPA, Americans spend $25 billion a year on lawn care. Residential lawns and gardens are doused with 80 million pounds of chemical pesticides and 70 million tons of fertilizers annually.

4. I love that Joni Mitchell song Big Yellow Taxi. You know, the one with the lyrics, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." Every year in the U.S. we pave over roughly 1.3 million acres of formerly unpaved land, according to a Carrying Capacity Network conference held in Washington, DC. Since that's almost twice the size of the Hawaiian Islands, I guess Joni actually understated the problem.

3. According to the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis, more than 2,500 deaths and 330,000+ injuries every year in the U.S. are caused by the use of cell phones (both handheld and hands-free phones) while driving. Yet only six states prohibit the use of cell phones while driving, and that only applies to hand-held phones; no state currently prohibits the use of hands-free phones.

2. World hunger stinks, but maybe it doesn't have to. According to the website globalissues.org, it would cost about $13 billion annually to satisfy the world's basic sanitation and food requirements. As they point out, that's roughly equivalent to what Americans and Europeans spend on perfume and cologne every year. Can't we all agree that the world would smell a lot better if no one wore perfume or cologne, but no one was starving to death either?

1. Oh well, I'm sure the next generation will be more ecologically and economically savvy than we are. Or maybe not: According to the Children in Nature website, "Children can identify up to 1,000 corporate logos, but fewer than 10 plants or animals native to their backyards."

Happy New Year everyone, and keep those shocking eco facts coming.

Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/save-money/environmental-statistics-460110#ixzz10CksWFbN

Bandung & Jakarta, Indonesia Immersion Programme

As we had mentioned in an earlier blog post, our school aspires to be a world-class high performance school, and organises numerous student immersion programmes to achieve that vision. From the 14^th to 17^th of October 2010, yet another student immersion programme in Bandung and Jakarta was held, which fourteen form three students took part in. The main purpose of the programme was to bridge the gap between the students from Malaysia and Indonesia as well as to learn about the language and cultural difference between the two countries. Out of the fourteen students who were involved in the programme, three students, Farhanah, Ili, and Soo Sun, were members of the Toyota Eco Rangers club, and like what Syafiqah did when she visited Singapore, they took advantage of the programme to learn more about the eco-projects carried out by the schools the visited.

They visited a few schools and universities in Indonesia. The first school they visited was Sekolah Kristen Yahya, which had a host of environmental projects. The school had a green house, in which fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, pomegranate and the nona fruit were planted. Our students also paid a visit to Sekolah Kristen Yahya's very own botanical garden which was established to facilitate the students' biological researches. The botanical garden was home to many plants. SMP Kristen Yahya also has a hydroponics plantation in their school compound. The students of the school strongly supported the idea of there being a hydroponics plantation and actively involved themselves in making the hydroponics plantation a massive success.

SMP Talenta is one of Indonesia's premier schools, and our students considered themselves lucky to be able to pay the school a visit. They were overwhelmed by the hospitality and friendliness of the students and teachers of Talenta. Our students were then taken for a tour around the school and learnt many things about the eco projects carried out in their school. Talenta had a green house which was similar to Kristen Yahya’s, except for the fact that Talenta's green house project was carried out on a comparatively bigger scale. There were many types of herbs and vegetables at the green house, which would be harvested and sold to the school society. According to the principal, the school has managed to earn a large sum of money through the sales of the herbs and vegetables. SMP Talenta also had a small farm where the students and teachers reared goats. The objective of establishing this farm was to make learning more interesting for the students. 

Another interesting place where we managed to learn about eco projects was the Institut Teknologi Bandung, also known as ITB, where they employed a uniqued method of separating and recycling their trash. Unfortunately, our students were running short on time and were unable to find out more about Institut Teknologi Bandung's recycling and segregation system.

The students who took part in the student immersion programme in Bandung and Jakarta, Indonesia found the experience both wonderful and memorable. They would like to thank the school, the Ministry of Education and the schools in Indonesia for giving them the time of their lives, and hope that similar projects would be held in the future.

Eco Film Festival 2010 by Eco Knights

No one is able to deny the important role held by film and animation, two of the most advanced forms of media, in today's society. Besides being used as a form of entertainment, they are also used to spread awareness, or to inform the general public about current issues. Various film festivals are held around the world, and some film festivals, such as the Sundance film festival, generate a lot of buzz, and attract a lot of attention. 

On the 16^th and 17^th October 2010, Ema Marya, Nurqueen and Syafiqah who is also one of our members, represented the school for an eco exhibition which was held in conjunction with the Eco Film Festival 2010. The Eco Film Festival is an event held by Eco Knights annually. This year, the exhibition of the Eco Film Festival was held at University Malaya's Faculty of Economics and Administration, and was attended by by school students, university students, lecturers, professionals, NGO’s, private companies and people from all walks of life who are concerned about the environment.

The main objective of  there being representatives from Sri Aman attending the event was to share their knowledge on how to go green and save the environment with the general public. They wanted to spread awareness on the importance of saving the environment amongst members of society. On top of that, they also wanted to find sponsors and exhibitors who would be willing to participate in our school's very first Eco Carnival, which would be held on the 11th of November on a large scale. Syafiqah was put in charge of distributing the invitation letters to private companies, NGO’s and the university students who attended the Eco Film Festival. She was pleased to note that the general response was positive, and that a vast majority of the people she reached out to agreed to participate in the carnival. Among the companies and organizations that showed interest in our carnival included Vermicompost, Living Wing Sdn. Bhd., Bio Home, Absolutely Emmy and WWF. 

Representing Sri Aman’s environmental team, they exhibited every eco-project carried out by Sri Aman. They also managed to promote our bio enzyme, compost, and herbal drink product through their exhibition. To their surprise, the visitors to their booth really enjoyed the orange-aloe vera juice sold, and as a result, they managed to earn RM52 from the sales of the aforementioned drink.

Their exhibition was a massive success, and many people were impressed by the effort invested by the students of Sri Aman in making the earth a better place to live. Visitors to their booth included the producer of Agent Orange, a popular video on Youtube who was also a good friend of Puan.Yasmin's, the founder of Eco Knights. Many volunteers such as university students also visited our booth. One of the students was interested in involving Sri Aman’s Toyota Eco Ranger members in the UM Paper Day which will be held soon. He said that he would call up our teacher advisor, Puan.Yeo, to discuss the event.

On the whole, the students representing our school found that the exhibition they participated in gave them a whole new experience and a lot of exposure. They hope to be able to have more opportunities such as this exhibition to share their knowledge on going green with the general public in the future.

Environmental Projects for School

Hands-on projects can help students understand the relationship between their actions and the environment. These projects may be quick demonstrations or challenges that last the entire school year. Whether you have your students plant a school garden, clean up a watershed or commit to lowering the school's climate impact, participating in environmental projects will encourage critical-thinking skills and a sense of achievement.

Elementary School Projects

1. Have a space on the school grounds reserved for children to grow vegetables. At the end of the year you can have a picnic with the fruits of their labor. Be sure to plant easy-growing vegetables such as carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers. Have the children start the seeds inside if you live in a climate that can get frost well into spring.
   Collect scrap paper over the course of a month and have the children come up with practical items out of the scraps. These could include necklaces, drinking cups, envelopes and art pieces.

Middle School Projects

2. Take a field trip or simply go outside the school and pick up trash. Note how different types can harm animals and the environment, such as soda can holders strangling birds or the trash building up and blocking a nearby waterway.
   You can partner with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service to monitor soil conditions around your school.

High School Projects

3. High school students can enroll in the Cool School Challenge by starting a Green Club, organizing recycling events and enlisting the school's administrators to reduce energy by conducting an energy audit. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a Climate Change Emission Calculator Kit (Climate CHECK) to help with this project. Students can then help create a campus climate action plan based on the results.
   Have your students work with your grounds maintenance team to plant native trees that can benefit wildlife, such as berrying trees for birds.

Saving the environment, made easy!

When you take a look outside, what do you see? Most of us take for granted the beautiful trees that supply us oxygen, and the air we breathe. Elements such as air, water and land are things that the average person thinks very little about, because they feel they are here for our use and consumption. But not for long, if we do not take steps to ensure their future vitality.

The simplest things you can do will have a great impact on our earth. Most people think they cannot help, but for every one person that changes their attitudes, the benefits for our earth quickly add up.

Here are some steps you can take to help!
1. Recycle, recycle, recycle. It sounds so simple, yet every time I pass a trash can there is a glass bottle in there. This simple act has helped reduce landfill volume dramatically, but so much more can be done.

2. Roll down your car window for air, only. Don't throw anything out of it. Although keeping that wrapper in your car for the duration of your trip may be a little annoying, it's something simple with many benefits. The road critters won't have the opportunity to gag on it, the roads will look cleaner, and you can avoid litter fines. Not too shabby, huh? This goes for anywhere you are. Wait until you get to a trash can to dispose of litter.

3. Dispose of oil properly. If you think you're saving money doing oil changes by yourself, think again. Put oil where it belongs, properly contained and disposed of. The earth has a much higher price to pay than you do for that oil.

4. Smash your trash. Instead of loosely filling up your garbage cans, compress the load down. You'll get more wear out of your garbage bags and the landfill will get more use, too!

5. Walk. This is the age-old recommendation. But it really works! Walk when you can. You'll use less gas, and get a workout as well. For those who can't easily walk to necessary places, organize your daily errands into one, multi-tasked trip.

6. Get involved. Your town has many opportunities for you to make a difference. There are also many national organizations with local branches that are in need of assistance. Getting involved with the community can be fun and environmentally friendly.

7. Vote. Many environmental issues take a political turn. Get educated and let your voice be heard. You don't have to be a politician to know what's right or wrong.

These few steps will make you a more environmentally conscious and happy person. You'll feel better about yourself because you've made a contribution, and you'll appreciate what you see more the next time you step outside, too.