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Surprising Facts

Ninety percent of Americans make less in real dollars than they did in 1973 – on average $4,000 less. The wealthiest 400 Americans now control more wealth than half the world’s people.

— Concerning 90 percent of Americans: Bob Herbert, “Reviving the Dream,” The New York Times, March 10, 2009, A23.

Concerning 400 Wealthiest: "The Forbes 400 Special Report", Forbes, September 17, 2008. It estimates the 400 wealthiest people in America have a net worth of $1.57 trillion. Global household wealth (defined as the value of physical and financial assets minus debts) in 2000 was valued at $125 trillion. Source: Davies, Sandstrom, Shorrocks & Wolff, "The Global Distribution of Household Wealth" WIDER Angle (Canada), December 1, 2006. According to the same study, and reported at www.freelibrary.com, 50% of the world’s adults owned barely 1% of global wealth, which would equal $1.25 trillion.

Worldwide, more people are members of cooperatives than own shares in publicly traded companies. Cooperatives provide a fifth more jobs than do global corporations.

— Concerning cooperatives: The International Cooperative Alliance reports 800 million cooperative members worldwide. Now consider that the combined population of the EU and North America is not much greater than this number and assume that no more than half of the people in these two regions likely own corporate shares, then -- even if, additionally, in the rest of the world there are several hundred million more shareholders of publicly traded companies -- the total is likely still less than 800 million.

About coop employment: Co-operatives provide over 100 million jobs around the world, 20% more than multinational enterprises. Source: The International Co-operative Alliance, "Statistical Information on the Co-operative Movement," www.ica.coop, Accessed October 8, 2010.

More than a third of both the world’s grain and fish catch now go to feed livestock, which return to us only a fraction of the nutrients.

— Food and Agriculture Organization, “World Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030,” FAO Economic and Social Development Department (2003).
For fish catch: Deborah Zabarenko, “One-third of world fish catch used for animal feed,” Reuters Online, October 29, 2008.

If the whole world moved to sustainable agriculture, a U. of Michigan study found that enough food could be grown to feed the world’s current and projected population.

— “Organic agriculture and the global food supply,” Catherine Badgley, et. al., Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (2007), Cambridge University Press, 22(2); 91.

An MRI study of people competing vs. cooperating found that cooperating stimulates the same parts of our brain as does eating chocolate!

— Natalie Angier, “Why We’re So Nice: We're Wired to Cooperate,” The New York Times, July 23, 2002.

America emits twice the carbon per person that Europe does. But think what’s possible: California emits 20 percent less carbon per dollar GDP than Germany; and it gets almost a quarter of its electricity from renewables!

— Stefan Theil, Greenest Nation, Newsweek, March 2, 2009.

In Washington DC, more than two dozen lobbyists push mainly corporate interests for every one representative American citizens have elected to protect our interests.

— Center for Responsive Politics, Open Secrets Database.

In 2011, solar use grew all over the world, soaring 54% to 28 gigawatts.

January 2012: 2011 - Solar sees 54% growth. In 2011 solar busted out all over the world, soaring 54% to 28 gigawatts (GW), driven by record installation in Germany and Italy, reports Bloomberg New Energy Finance. "The year was on the high side of even bullish estimates," says Jenny Chase of Bloomberg New Energy. "We think 2012 will be about flat, as European markets have overshot targets and spending caps and plan to rein back severely." The astounding growth came from crashing solar prices and a rush among developers to get as much solar installed before subsidy cuts in EU's biggest markets, Germany, Italy and the UK. Governments couldn't afford the above-market rates they offer under their feed-in laws for such a huge number of installations.

http://www.thinkglobalgreen.org/SOLAR.html

Organic farming yields are about the same as conventional yields under normal weather conditions, and during times of drought, organic farming outperforms conventional methods by 31 percent! Organic farming also uses 45 percent less energy.

The Rodale Institute got these exciting results by working since 1981 on side-by-side trials of organically-grown and conventionally-grown corn and soybeans. Read a short summary below on Care2.com, and check out the full report by following the link embedded in the article:

Care2.com: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/study-organic-farming-vs-industrial-agr...

Also, you can see the original source here:

http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/fst30years

Because of lower overhead costs, farmers using a non-pesticide approach in India enjoy a 23 percent increase in income, and report their health improving as well.

According to GRAIN magazine:

"Pesticide-free farming is spreading in the region of Andhra Pradesh, partly because in the medium term it brings farmers a larger and more reliable income. In Lakshminayak Thanda they have a regularly updated chart in the centre of the village in which they compare the income of cotton farmers who have given up the use of chemical pesticides, compared with that of farmers using them. Farmers not using pesticides are practising NPM (non-pesticide management). As can be seen in the photograph, the two kinds of farmers had comparable yields for cotton last harvest (520.2 kg for the NPM farmer, compared with 522.5 kg for the farmer using chemical pesticides), but the net income of the NPM farmer was considerably higher (3,512.60 rupees compared with 2,861.50 rupees), because his costs were much lower."

See the full article here:

http://www.grain.org/article/entries/679-saying-no-to-chemical-farming-i...