Green States: Keeping score
Fri, May 22 2009 at 5:00 AM EST
Read more: ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
(Illustration by Jeff Morin/iStockPhoto) 
Here’s a quick look by the numbers at where we’re in trouble on key environmental issues. I’ve borrowed a bit from the style of the Harper’s Index, and a bit from those before/after ads for weight loss products. Except that it’s not weight that we’re losing:
Estimated pre-industrial CO2 levels: 280 parts per million
1958 CO2 levels: 317 parts per million
1990 CO2 levels: 356 parts per million
2009 CO2 levels: 391 parts per million
1960: 33.9 billion passenger miles
1990: 358.9 billion passenger miles
2006: 590.6 billion passenger miles
1960: 1.145 trillion passenger miles
1990: 3.561 trillion passenger miles
2006: 4.994 trillion passenger miles
(Yes, that’s right: As of the last full year posted by the U.S. Bureau of Transportation statistics, if you count up every mile traveled by every passenger or driver of every car in the U.S., we travelled almost 5 trillion miles on roads in 2006. That means we drove 570 million miles an hour.)
1960: 17.1 billion passenger miles
1990: 6.0 billion passenger miles
2006: 5.4 billion passenger miles
U.S. coal use, 1980: 702.7 billion tons
U.S. coal use, 2007: 1.129 trillion tons
China coal use, 1980: 678.5 billion tons
China coal use, 2007: 2.893 trillion tons
Worldwide coal use, 1980: 4,127 trillion tons
Worldwide coal use, 2007: 7,193 trillion tons
Barrels imported, 1960: 590 Million Barrels
Percentage of oil that was imported, 1960: 16.7%
Barrels imported, 2007: 4.395 Billion Barrels
Percentage of oil that was imported, 2007: 58.2%
Number of U.S. presidents that have vowed to cut oil imports since 1960: 11
Percentage of Americans who think global warming concerns are exaggerated, 1998: 31%
Same polling question, 2009: 41%
Percentage of Americans who prefer environmental protection even if it harms the economy, 1984: 60%
Same question, asked amidst the recession of 2009: 42%
Chesapeake Bay oyster landings, 1880: 10,000,000 bushels
Chesapeake Bay oyster landings, 2006: 45,000 bushels
Average annual endangered species listings during the Reagan administration: 32
During the George H.W. Bush administration: 58
During the Clinton administration: 62
During the George W. Bush administration: 8
Known pairs of bald eagles in 1963: 417
Known pairs of Bald Eagles in 2007, after 35 years’ protection on the endangered list: 11,040
Average amount of food thrown away by each American each day: 1.3 pounds
Year the Ein Gedi Resort opened on the shores of the shrinking Dead Sea: 1970
Length of the trolley ride from the resort to the current shoreline: Nearly ¾ mile
Average annual loss of Louisiana Wetlands due to channeling, subsidence, and erosion: 40 square miles
Projected migration of Louisiana’s coastline by the year 2040: 33 miles inland
Rank of “global warming” among 20 domestic policy priorities in a 2009 poll: 20th
***
Peter Dykstra is the former executive producer of CNN's Science, Tech and Weather Unit. He writes three columns for MNN: Media Mayhem on Mondays, Political Habitat on Wednesdays, and Green States on Fridays. (Yes, he writes a lot.)
(MNN homepage images: Tesla Motors and Toyota Prius)
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