Helz
December 18th, 2013, 11:35 AM
I was talking to my friend the other day and she asked me why I always say humans are so awful to this planet. We talked about it for a bit and I went to my 'Go to' solution for finding information- Google. However I didn't really see anything that really brought out my point. So I made my own little bit.. Its focused on America.
(Given an average american life span of 78.64)
An american consumes an average of:
Half a pound of meat a day. That's 182.5 pounds a year and 14351 pounds of meat in a life time
1.6 pounds of dairy a day. That's 584 pounds a year and 45925.76 pounds of dairy in a life time
.2 pounds of fats and oils a day. That's 73 pounds a year and 5740.72 pounds of dairy in a life time
.8 pounds of fruit a day. That's 292 pounds a year and 22962.88 pounds of dairy in a life time
Half a pound of grain a day. That's 182.5 pounds a year and 14351 pounds of grain in a life time
.4 pounds of sugars a day. That's 146 pounds a year and 11481.44 pounds of sugars in a life time
.7 pounds of vegetables a day. That's 255.5 pounds a year and 20092.52 pounds of vegetables in a life time
For a grand total of 4.7 pounds a day, 1715.5 pounds a year or 134906.92 pounds in a lifetime.
Also Americans throw away a very large portion of the food they obtain. (40%)
So the cost of an American life would be:
Fifty thousand, Two hundred and thirty one chickens or
Two hundred seventy five pigs or
Thirty seven and a half cows
7476 gallons of milk (Thats 482 kegs or about 3/4 of an Olympic pool)
Sixteen thousand seventy four loafs of bread (That is a little larger than this building http://dallas.citybizlist.com/article/kbs-fills-24976-sf-dallas)
With a grand total of eating 18 monster trucks worth of weight.
As a country we could use a diet..
Also..
The average American will produce 4.5 pounds of solid waste a day. That's 1642.5 pounds a year and 129166 in a life time.
The average American will consume 80370 gallons of oil in a life time (What the fuck)
The average American will produce 5,298,763 pounds of carbon emissions just from driving 1,059,752.64 miles. This doesn't take into account any kind of public transportation or the energy grid.
The average American will consume 49,543 pounds of paper and lumber in a life time. Considering that there is only about 400 billion trees and 7 billion people on earth this is a very bad ratio.
The average American family of 4 uses 400 gallons of water a day. That's 36,500 gallons per person a year and 2,870,360 gallons for one person in a life time.
If we take the obvious into account.. Human population has done nothing but increased. Thomas Malthus is the founding father of a theory that earth will someday be unable to support our ever growing population: Humans need certain resources to survive at subsistence level -- most commonly air, food, water and usually some kind of shelter. A sustainable habitat is one in which supply of and demand for these resources are balanced. With that in mind lets look at human growth patterns. This is something china got right.
American population in 1990: 253,339,000
American population in 2010: 310,384,000
Or a 22.5% growth.
This is totally unsustainable. Granted it takes into account immigration but if the world were to follow this rate we would out grow our planet in a few generations. Thankfully the world population has only increased by about 1 billion in the last 50 years and at that rate we have some time to figure it out so long as wars and genocide and disease and starvation and shitty medical care exist in most of the world.
So to my point- For a few to enjoy life many must suffer. And humans are the worst thing that could happen to this planet. If we someday find a way to migrate past earth we will become a blight on the universe and not just this planet. I originally wanted to compare a human life to the worst 'other species' but there is just nothing to compare it to. Every other species we know of finds a sense of harmony. It is our species that destroys harmony. Sure you can say we do great things but those things are only great because they are solutions to problems we create. For all of our intelligence and compassion we are totally unable to give this compassion to the world we call home.
It may not be our problem but our children will pay for our lack of consideration. And this is why I would compare humans to the earth on par with cancer to a human.
I would call these numbers liberal. But they are pretty damn close to what I believe we use from my life style. The majority of the sources for this information are very respectable but just so you don't wonder where all those numbers came from..
Food consumption http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter1.htm
Waste http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw2008data.pdf
NASA's projection on the amount of trees on earth http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96758439 (NASA has some really scary studies..)
American paper/lumber use http://www.akforest.org/
American miles driven per year (US Department of Transportation)
Carbon emission from gasoline http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420f05001.htm
American MPG http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_23.html
Average chicken weight http://www.homesteadorganics.ca/meat-chickens.aspx
Average pig hanging weight http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/livestock-forums/pigs/452449-hanging-weight-vs-live-weight.html
Average American oil use http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/chinainstitute/nav03.cfm?nav03=43721&nav02=43661&nav01=43092
Average American water use http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/pubs/indoor.html
(Average cow hanging weight I calculated off a ton of sources so I will not provide a link)
12"x4"x4 average size of bread loaf (I had to measure it) or 224 square inches or 1.555(Continued) square foot
If you want to know the math I use to calculate any of this feel free to PM me.
I am very interested to see what you guys think about this.
(Given an average american life span of 78.64)
An american consumes an average of:
Half a pound of meat a day. That's 182.5 pounds a year and 14351 pounds of meat in a life time
1.6 pounds of dairy a day. That's 584 pounds a year and 45925.76 pounds of dairy in a life time
.2 pounds of fats and oils a day. That's 73 pounds a year and 5740.72 pounds of dairy in a life time
.8 pounds of fruit a day. That's 292 pounds a year and 22962.88 pounds of dairy in a life time
Half a pound of grain a day. That's 182.5 pounds a year and 14351 pounds of grain in a life time
.4 pounds of sugars a day. That's 146 pounds a year and 11481.44 pounds of sugars in a life time
.7 pounds of vegetables a day. That's 255.5 pounds a year and 20092.52 pounds of vegetables in a life time
For a grand total of 4.7 pounds a day, 1715.5 pounds a year or 134906.92 pounds in a lifetime.
Also Americans throw away a very large portion of the food they obtain. (40%)
So the cost of an American life would be:
Fifty thousand, Two hundred and thirty one chickens or
Two hundred seventy five pigs or
Thirty seven and a half cows
7476 gallons of milk (Thats 482 kegs or about 3/4 of an Olympic pool)
Sixteen thousand seventy four loafs of bread (That is a little larger than this building http://dallas.citybizlist.com/article/kbs-fills-24976-sf-dallas)
With a grand total of eating 18 monster trucks worth of weight.
As a country we could use a diet..
Also..
The average American will produce 4.5 pounds of solid waste a day. That's 1642.5 pounds a year and 129166 in a life time.
The average American will consume 80370 gallons of oil in a life time (What the fuck)
The average American will produce 5,298,763 pounds of carbon emissions just from driving 1,059,752.64 miles. This doesn't take into account any kind of public transportation or the energy grid.
The average American will consume 49,543 pounds of paper and lumber in a life time. Considering that there is only about 400 billion trees and 7 billion people on earth this is a very bad ratio.
The average American family of 4 uses 400 gallons of water a day. That's 36,500 gallons per person a year and 2,870,360 gallons for one person in a life time.
If we take the obvious into account.. Human population has done nothing but increased. Thomas Malthus is the founding father of a theory that earth will someday be unable to support our ever growing population: Humans need certain resources to survive at subsistence level -- most commonly air, food, water and usually some kind of shelter. A sustainable habitat is one in which supply of and demand for these resources are balanced. With that in mind lets look at human growth patterns. This is something china got right.
American population in 1990: 253,339,000
American population in 2010: 310,384,000
Or a 22.5% growth.
This is totally unsustainable. Granted it takes into account immigration but if the world were to follow this rate we would out grow our planet in a few generations. Thankfully the world population has only increased by about 1 billion in the last 50 years and at that rate we have some time to figure it out so long as wars and genocide and disease and starvation and shitty medical care exist in most of the world.
So to my point- For a few to enjoy life many must suffer. And humans are the worst thing that could happen to this planet. If we someday find a way to migrate past earth we will become a blight on the universe and not just this planet. I originally wanted to compare a human life to the worst 'other species' but there is just nothing to compare it to. Every other species we know of finds a sense of harmony. It is our species that destroys harmony. Sure you can say we do great things but those things are only great because they are solutions to problems we create. For all of our intelligence and compassion we are totally unable to give this compassion to the world we call home.
It may not be our problem but our children will pay for our lack of consideration. And this is why I would compare humans to the earth on par with cancer to a human.
I would call these numbers liberal. But they are pretty damn close to what I believe we use from my life style. The majority of the sources for this information are very respectable but just so you don't wonder where all those numbers came from..
Food consumption http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter1.htm
Waste http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw2008data.pdf
NASA's projection on the amount of trees on earth http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96758439 (NASA has some really scary studies..)
American paper/lumber use http://www.akforest.org/
American miles driven per year (US Department of Transportation)
Carbon emission from gasoline http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420f05001.htm
American MPG http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_23.html
Average chicken weight http://www.homesteadorganics.ca/meat-chickens.aspx
Average pig hanging weight http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/livestock-forums/pigs/452449-hanging-weight-vs-live-weight.html
Average American oil use http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/chinainstitute/nav03.cfm?nav03=43721&nav02=43661&nav01=43092
Average American water use http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/pubs/indoor.html
(Average cow hanging weight I calculated off a ton of sources so I will not provide a link)
12"x4"x4 average size of bread loaf (I had to measure it) or 224 square inches or 1.555(Continued) square foot
If you want to know the math I use to calculate any of this feel free to PM me.
I am very interested to see what you guys think about this.