Matter of scale: liquidating our assets.

Liquidating Our Assets

Amount of water returned to the
Ogallala Aquifer by rainfall each year          2.4 billion gallons

Amount drawn from the Ogallala for
irrigation and other human uses
each year                                      20.0 billion gallons

Amount of topsoil created by
nature each year 0.4 billion tons

Amount lost to erosion                            25.0 billion tons

Time it takes the global human
economy to consume the equivalent
of 22 million tons of oil                                     1 day

Time it took the planet to create
that energy                                             10,000 days

Number of species lost to
extinction each year, on average,
during the past 65 million years                            1 to 10

Number lost in the past year
(conservatively estimated)                          1,000 to 10,000

Time it took for the world to lose
1 percent of its forests, on average,
during the 30 centuries prior to the
Industrial Revolution                                     100 years

Time it is taking to lose 1 percent now                      1 year

Number of endangered black-footed
ferrets known to remain in the wild                              24

Number of endangered Madagascan tree
boas found in a suitcase being carried
by smuggler Simon David Harris in 1996                           61

Number of threatened Peninsular
bighorn sheep in California's
Coachella Valley                                                 95

Number of habitat-displacing golf
courses in the Coachella Valley                                  91

SOURCES: Patti Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce (New York: Harper
Collins, 1993). G. Tyler Miller, Living in the Environment (Belmont,
California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1992). Vital Signs 1997 (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1997). John C. Ryan, Life Support: Conserving
Biological Diversity, Worldwatch Paper 108 (Washington, DC:
Worldwatch Institute, April 1992). Janet Abramovitz, "Valuing
Nature's Services," in State of the World 1997 (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1997). Alan Durning, Saving the Forests, Worldwatch Paper
117 (Washngton, DC: Worldwatch Institute, December 1993). Donovan
Webster, New York Times Magazine, February 16, 1997. Diana Marcum,
Los Angeles Times, Washington, DC edition, March 17, 1997.