GLOBAL BURDEN and FUNDAMENTAL NECESSITY — CLEAN WATER Polluted water combined with inadequate sanitation kill 2 children every minute worldwide. Contributing factors include global warming, groundwater depleting, and pollution. It is of the utmost importance to recycle and reuse accessible fresh water. Despite global efforts during the water and sanitation decade, improvements in...

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and co-author Linda Bilmes estimated earlier this year that the Iraq war costs $12 billion per month. This translates to $395 million per day or $144 billion per year. They also project that, taken together, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will have cost somewhere between $1.7-$2.7 trillion by 2017 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23551693...

70% of US electricity is produced using fossil fuels. For more information, visit: http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/electricity.cfm/state=IL http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/prim2/chapter3.html The world’s population is expected to increase every year by 74.8 million people between 2002 and 2015. Over 2 billion people in developing countries lack access to...

Pesticides include herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, disinfectant, and compounds used to control mice and rats. Studies show pesticide exposures in humans induce an increase in headaches, fatigue, insomnia, dizziness, hand tremors, and other neurological symptoms. Evidence suggests that children are particularly susceptible to adverse effects from exposure to pesticides, including...

THE 21st CENTURY CLIMATE CHALLENGE Heat trapping gases sent into the atmosphere in 2008 will stay there until 2108 and beyond. We are therefore making choices today that will affect our own lives, as well as the lives of our children and grandchildren. “This makes climate change different and more difficult than other policy challenges.” Deaths from global warming will double...

THE FACTS ABOUT TRASH Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) —otherwise known as trash or garbage—consists of product packaging, grass clippings, furniture, clothing, bottles, food scraps, newspapers, appliances, and batteries. Not included are materials that also may be disposed in landfills but are not generally considered MSW, such as construction and demolition debris, municipal wastewater...

The textile industry is one of the largest in the world; responsible for enormous CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions and must be considered a significant contributor to climate change. http://mslk.com/reactions/?p=1195 Second only to agriculture, the textile industry uses more water than any other and discharges massive quantities of toxic chemicals into the environment at all...