Quick Facts and References

Empowered by God's grace and guided by the Holy Spirit, the Christian life is about fulfilling the Great Commandments (Mk. 12: 28-31). Colossians proclaims that Christ died to reconcile all of Creation to God, showing how much God loves all of Creation: "God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (Col. 1: 19-20, NIV). Indeed, Christ is not only the Reconciler of all things, He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things as well (Col. 1: 15-18; John 1: 1-3; Heb. 1:1-4).

Unfortunately, the facts suggest that pollution and environmental degradation are working against the reconciliation of all creation wrought by Christ's blood.

Air Pollution

• More than one in three Americans live in areas with unhealthy air, and in many areas it is getting worse, especially in poorer neighborhoods. Nitrogen oxides (forms smog) have increased 11% between 1970 and 1997. Sulfur dioxide emissions (results in fine particulate pollution or soot) increased in 1996-98 to more than 9% over 1995 levels.
• For the first time recent studies have linked air pollution to:
  • the risk of dying from cancer;
  • harming the blood vessels of healthy individuals;
  • low birth weight, premature births, stillbirths and infant deaths;
  • healthy, active children becoming 3-4 times more likely to develop asthma;
  • measurable lung damage in healthy children, which could lead to lung disease.
• Estimates are that soot results in 15,000 premature deaths every year.
• Smog and soot hit asthma sufferers the hardest. As air pollution has increased, so have asthma cases - by more than 60% since 1980. Between 1985 and 1995 there was a 45.3% increase in asthma deaths. The total estimated cost of asthma in 1993 was $12.6 billion.
• Asthma death rates for black Americans are three times that of whites.
• One out of every three asthma victims is a child. Seven percent of children suffer from asthma, which is the number one cause of school absences. In 1994, this resulted in $673 million in caretaker's time lost from work.
• Mercury contamination has forced 40 states to warn their residents to restrict their fish consumption. Especially vulnerable are women of childbearing age, pregnant and lactating women, children and populations that consume large amounts of fish such as Native Americans and the poor.
• Air pollution causes other damage to creation, including forest damage from acid rain, ozone eutrophication (overfertilization from nitrogen) of lakes and ponds, loss of fish and other aquatic species from acidification, and reproductive failures caused by mercury in fish and in birds that eat fish.

Water Pollution & Water Scarcity

• Over one billion people still lack access to safe water, and nearly two billion lack safe sanitation. More than three million people still die every year from avoidable water-related disease.
• Global water consumption rose sixfold between 1900 and 1995 -- more than double the rate of population growth -- and continues to grow rapidly as agricultural, industrial, and domestic demand increases.
• The majority of the world's population lives near and depends on freshwater environments, with most inland cities lying adjacent to a river or lake. In addition to being biologically rich, freshwater systems play a vital role in the lives of many people, providing a source of water, food, and employment. About 6 percent of the world's fish catch, or 7 million metric tons per year, come from rivers and lakes, as well as the bulk of the world's irrigation water.
• More than 40 percent of the world’s population lives in conditions of water stress. This percentage is estimated to grow to almost 50 percent by 2025.
• Of the 19 countries around the world currently classified as water-stressed, more are in Africa than in any other region.

Global Warming

• Agricultural output in many poorer countries could be significantly reduced. An additional 80-90 million poor people could be at risk of hunger and malnutrition later in the 21st century.
• Poorer countries are much less able to withstand the devastation caused by extreme weather events, and climate change is likely to increase such events. For example, global warming could increase the number of people impacted by flooding by 20-50 million.
• Hundreds of millions of people will be at increased risk of malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, encephalitis, and other infectious diseases because of global warming.
• Each of these stressors increases the likelihood of environmental refugees and violent conflicts.
• Although the U.S. will likely have the resources to adapt to the impacts of global warming, the poor in the U.S. will also suffer disproportionately. For example, large cities in the U.S. may experience, on average, several hundred extra deaths per summer.
• Up to 37% of God's land-based species could be committed to extinction by 2050, making global warming the largest single threat to biodiversity.

More information is also available in our global warming section.

Oceans

• Oceans occupy 70% of the earth's surface and are home to over 90% of all life on earth.
• Seafood is the primary source of protein for many coastal people. Worldwide, about 700 million persons are directly dependent upon fisheries for food.
• Nearly one third of the world's fisheries have collapsed or are near collapse because of overfishing. Nearly half of the world's fisheries are being fished at their maximum level.
• Many fish are caught before they are old enough to reproduce.
• Millions of tons of "by-catch" such as sea turtles and dolphins are hurt or killed each year, threatening their existence in some areas. ("By-catch" are creatures that are not intended to be caught but are caught anyway.)
• Scientists hope to identify many of the estimated million-plus species of life in the oceans (only a small fraction of which have been identified to date) through a comprehensive global study called the Census of Marine Life. This includes the expected identification of at least 5,000 new species of fish.
• Sewage is the largest source of contamination by volume of God's oceans.
• Worldwide approximately 250 million people become sick each year after eating contaminated fish or bathing or swimming in contaminated coastal waters. Even in coastal waters deemed swimmable, 5% of adults worldwide will become sick after a single swim.
• Air pollution from vehicles and industry, as it falls from the sky, contributes approximately half of the nitrogen pollution in oceans, and a significant portion of the mercury pollution. As developing countries industrialize, atmospheric pollution is expected to increase.
• Nitrogen levels in oceans are exacerbated by the widespread loss of natural interceptors such as coastal wetlands, coral reefs, and mangrove forests. In the United States 200,000 acres of coastal wetlands and estuaries are lost each year.
• So-called "dead zones," or oxygen-depleted areas resulting from nitrogen and other pollution, are increasing in frequency, intensity, and geographic distribution worldwide. In the United States each year, a dead zone the size of Massachusetts is created in the Gulf of Mexico. This year's dead zone in the Chesapeake Bay was the largest in the Bay's history. Dead zones now occur in almost every coastal state.
• Two-thirds of U.S. estuaries and bays are either moderately or severely degraded by pollution.
• Each year garbage dumped in God's oceans kills large numbers of sea birds, sea turtles, and marine mammals as they eat it or become entangled in it.
• Sprawl anywhere - not just near coastal areas - causes significant damage to God's oceans. Paved surfaces cause oil, grease, and other toxic pollutants to reach coastal waters. In the United States, every eight months nearly 11 million gallons of oil run off our streets and driveways into God's streams, rivers, and oceans - the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. A one-acre parking lot produces about 16 times the volume of runoff that would come from a one-acre meadow.
• Coastal counties in the United States, which comprise just 17% of U.S. land, are home to more than half of the U.S. population. Sprawl development is consuming land at least five times as fast as population growth in many coastal areas.
• Worldwide nearly 40% of the world's population lives near a coast - more people than inhabited the earth in 1950.
• The poor living in coastal communities - the least able to deal with the multiple harmful consequences of global warming - will be the hardest hit. The consequences will be dire.
• Changes in water temperatures and other consequences of global warming (e.g. changes in salinity, nutrients, sea level) have a profound effect upon marine species. For example, water temperature can have a direct effect on spawning and survival of larvae and juveniles as well as on fish growth.
• Marine mammals such as polar bears are "the canary in the coal mine" when it comes to changes in ocean environments. For polar bears, extended ice-free seasons in the Arctic due to global warming could reduce access to seals and lead to deaths from starvation.
• Increases in atmospheric temperature from global warming may slow or shut down the Atlantic's Gulf Stream, causing reductions in sea-surface and air temperatures over the North Atlantic and northern Europe.
• Coral reefs harbor more than 25% of all known marine fish, as well as a total species diversity containing more phyla than rainforests.
• Current estimates are that 10 percent of all coral reefs are degraded beyond recovery. Thirty percent are in critical condition and may die within 10 to 20 years. If current pressures continue unabated, 60 percent of the world's coral reefs may die completely by 2050.

God’s Other Creatures

• Worldwide, at least 15,589 species face extinction. However, this is certainly an underestimate, because it is based on assessments of only 3% of the world's 1.9 million species that have been described. A majority of the world's species have not been described.
• Although estimates vary greatly, current extinction rates are at least one hundred to a thousand times higher than background, or "natural" rates.
• There are major gaps in our knowledge of the status of threatened species. We know little about marine and freshwater systems, or many species-rich habitats (such as tropical forests or the ocean depths), or species-rich groups such as invertebrates, plants, and fungi (which together comprise the vast majority of species).
• Global trends indicate increases in the number and rate of extinctions of described species, and the main causes of extinction (such as habitat loss and exploitation) are increasing.
• One in eight birds and one in four mammals are known to be in jeopardy.
• One in three amphibians and almost half of all freshwater turtles are threatened.
• The first complete assessment of amphibians (i.e., frogs, toads, salamanders) reveals they are likely to be the most threatened vertebrates, with at least 1 in 5 species in the Critically Endangered or Endangered categories.
• Over one in five (21%) of the world's plant species may be threatened with extinction.
• Over one-third of all assessed North American invertebrate species are threatened with extinction. A current study indicates that the actual number of all threatened invertebrate species in North America may be five times this number.
• Most threatened bird, mammal, and amphibian species are located on tropical continents—Central and South America, Africa south of the Sahara, and tropical South and Southeast Asia. These regions contain the tropical broadleaf forests, which are believed to harbor the majority of the earth's living terrestrial and freshwater species.
• Countries that have the highest numbers of threatened species tend to be the least able to invest significant resources into conservation because they have relatively low gross national income. These include Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Peru, and the Philippines.
• A new survey of the world's oceans has confirmed that 90% of large predatory fish (such as sharks) in the world have been wiped out in the past 50 years because of commercial fishing.
• Industrialized fisheries typically reduced targeted fish populations by four-fifths within 15 years.
• Forest cover has been reduced by more than 20 percent worldwide, with some forest ecosystems, such as the dry tropical forests of Central America, virtually gone.
• Wetlands areas have shrunk by about half; and grasslands have been reduced by more than 90 percent in some areas.
• Insects comprise more than half of the world's species. Strong evidence suggests that huge numbers of insect species are disappearing, as are other species that depend upon them. Researchers in Britain discovered that 71% of butterfly species have declined or disappeared over the past 20 years, as well as 54% of birds. The past 40 years has seen declines in 28% of plants studied.
• A study published in the January 04 issue of Nature indicated that 15-37% of known land-based species could become "committed to extinction" by 2050 due to global warming.
• Humans have been the main cause of extinction and continue to be the principle threat to species at risk of extinction.
• Habitat loss, introduced species, over-exploitation, and pollution are the main threats, with human-induced climate change becoming an increasingly significant threat to species.