Global party celebrates Earth Day 2000

Focus on climate change - the biggest threat to life on the planet - and what you can do to help

By: Suzanne Elston

  April 14th marks the start of a worldwide party like nothing we've ever seen before. Over the next two weeks, 500 million people in 181 countries will commemorate Earth Day 2000. The special fortnight long celebration marks both the 30th anniversary of the event, and the start of the new millennium. The festivities will climax on April 22nd - Earth Day.
  In Canada, and around the world, the focus will be climate change - the single greatest threat to life on the planet. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, in the past century carbon dioxide and methane gas levels have increased to their highest levels in 200,000 years, the result of deforestation, agriculture, garbage rotting in landfills and our incredible dependency on fossil fuels.
 

One fifth of the world's population is responsible for 62 percent of carbon emissions while another fifth contributes just two percent - Report of Population Action International

  To mark Earth Day 2000, the U.S. based Population Action International (PAI) released its ranking of the top carbon-dioxide producers. The ranking, part of a forthcoming PAI report, People in the Balance: Population and Natural Resources at the Turn of the Millennium, was based on the most recent data available from the United Nations and the U.S. government. The report clearly indicates the incredible disparity in carbon emission: one fifth of the world's population is responsible for 62 percent of emissions while another fifth contributes just two percent, according to PAI's calculations.
  The high-emitting 20 percent live mostly in the United States and other industrialized countries, but also in such oil rich countries as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Top honors went to the tiny but wealthy Qatar, with a whopping 14.24 tons per capita. By comparison, carbon dioxide levels in Mali, Congo, Cambodia and Burundi were a mere 0.01 tons per-capita. Chad's levels were too low to measure.
  Canada ranked 13th overall, with an average of 3.73 metric tons of CO2 emissions per person in 1996. According to Environment Canada, that figure continues to rise annually. From 1990 to 1997, our greenhouse gas emissions increased 13 per cent. 80 to 85 per cent of these emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels.
 

: From 1990 to 1997, Canada's greenhouse gas emissions increased 13 per cent. Eighty to 85 per cent of these emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels

  Global average per-capita emissions of CO2 reached 1.1346 metric tons of carbon in 1996. To put this in perspective, a typical sports utility vehicle driven 12 miles a day puts one ton of carbon in the air each year. Together, the 5.7 billion people on the planet that year released a record-breaking total of 6.518 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere.
  The damage is beginning to show. The bizarre weather that we've been experiencing for the past few years is just a sampling of things to come. Some of the by-products of climate change include flooding and erosion of coastal regions, an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events and forest fires, damage to fresh water resources and the loss of planet and wildlife species unable to adapt to the rate of change.
  It's this rate of change that's the key. Our planet has been evolving for the last four and a half billion years. By comparison, Henry Hengeveld, senior meteorologist with Environment Canada warns that if things continue on their present course, our entire biosphere will be completely transformed within a mere 500 years. No living system can adapt that fast.
 

Some of the by-products of climate change include flooding and erosion of coastal regions, an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events and forest fires, damage to fresh water resources and the loss of planet and wildlife species unable to adapt to the rate of change

  The solution is action. Individually we've helped to create this problem, and individually we can help solve it. Earth Day Canada suggests:

• Using compact fluorescent light bulbs. They last ten times as long and use about one-fourth the energy of regular incandescent bulbs.

• Turn off lights and appliances when you leave the room.

• Installing an energy efficient showerhead saves 27 cents on water and 51 cents on electricity every day!

• Heating bills cans be slashed by up to 20 per cent by sealing leaks around doors and windows.

• Recycle. The energy that saved from recycling just one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.

• Take public transit. Nine tons of pollutants are saved each year by just one busload of passengers who leave their cars at home.

• Find out more. Read the Earth Day edition of Earth Day Canada's Solutions newsletter. To receive a copy, contact Earth Day Canada.

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