One Earth - One Chance
That's how our new t-shirt puts it: one earth, one chance.
And we're fast running out of chances to get it right. With each tick of the clock, 2.4 million pounds of CO2
enters the atmosphere. Every minute, the world loses 150 acres of tropical rainforest. Every hour, US'ers
toss over 2 million water bottles into the trash. One out of 1000 human beings (8.7 million) will die from
fossil fuel-caused air pollution this year. And there are 3 billion fewer birds in North America than 50 years
ago - anybody notice?
Want to do something about it? Here's the list on the back of these same shirts:
- Less stuff: all told, humans extract 100 billion tons of materials from the earth annually - with only
8.6% of it recycled. And getting the finished products made from these materials to us has its own
(carbon) cost: 15 container ships transporting goods from around the world create as much carbon
emissions as all the world's cars - and wreaks havoc with whales' emotional well-being!
- Lower on the food chain (more grains, fruits and veggies): food production is responsible for a quarter
of our greenhouse gases and requires half of the planet's habitable land (not counting oceanic impacts) -
meat and dairy have an out-sized role in land use and climate change impacts
- Lighter carbon footprint (think cars, cows, consumption, convenience - and green energy): earth is now losing 1.2 trillion tons of ice per year = sea level rise, loss of habitat (polar bears!), a slowing Gulf Stream (!), new pathogens released from their frozen slumber?! Fossil fuel combustion causes 8.7 million air pollution deaths every year!
- Learn from nature's ways (we're the only creature that creates trash - and we're the "smart ones"): we waste 40 percent of the food we produce, also "wasting" the land, fuel, greenhouse gases, chemicals and eroded soil involved. See our interview with the trash guy on our Stuff page to see what happens to our recyclables now that China isn't taking them anymore.
- Love this planet - our only home (get to know a stream or forest or desert near you): love a mangrove swamp by restoring it through our new Mangroves to the Rescue initiative in Nigeria!
- Let your voice be heard! (it's not enough to change ourselves - we have to get the word out): Our Sustainable Living Centers are actively engaging their communities around energy efficiency, bike lanes, food production and more; Olivia took on the Girl Scouts with a petition campaign over their cookies containing palm oil, as producing the stuff is destroying tropical forests and using child workers. And a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter told her story!
Knowledge is power: Your Ecological Footprint - newly updated! We can't change what we don't know!
Get yourself on one of our Learning Tours to the Amazon, Arctic, Asia and Africa to see what's at stake. Get yourself one of our new t-shirts to share the good news of a better way!



Climate Change
We are quickly turning the global climate from our friend to our adversary. We need to act soon and decisively to restore this relationship - or else.