April 22nd, better known as Earth Day, is a perfect opportunity to bring the environment to the forefront and review some of the key global changes and trends impacting the world. So in honor of Earth Day the EarthTrends team has put together a few interesting statistics from our database.

Happy Earth Day!

Twenty-two years ago, the Montreal Protocol was adopted to protect the ozone layer from depletion. It was the first-ever international agreement on the regulation of chemical pollutants. (Carlowicz, 2009)

The Montreal Protocol was characterized by Kofi Annan as "one of the great success stories of international cooperation." As a recently released simulation of Earth without the Montreal Protocol shows, there would have been grim consequences for a business as usual approach. (See Figure 1.) Among other things, this simulation predicts an Earth with a dangerously insufficient ozone layer by 2050.

The relationship between economic growth and rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is the chicken or the egg question of the climate change debate. A growth in industry, and hence emissions, will no doubt stimulate a country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Conversely, a higher GDP will often lead to a greater disposable income and higher standards of living which could manifest in more cars, more residential energy use and more consumption all of which will impact on a country's total emissions.

For those of us trying to make more sustainable choices within our daily lives, the decision to buy local produce appears to be an obvious next step. The transportation sector contributes nearly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries. It seems logical then that cutting down on the distance between consumers and producers should also have a direct impact on emissions. For this reason the last few years have seen a push for food miles labeling particularly in Europe. However, many critics of food miles feel that this system is at best tokenistic and in some cases does more harm than good.

The food miles debate highlights a clash between differing sustainable development agendas. From an environmental perspective, encouraging consumers to alter their purchasing patterns and limiting transportation emissions can only be a good thing. However, from an economic development point of view, food miles labeling can damage important industries in poor countries.

Around 80% of all life on Earth can be found in the oceans, which cover more than 70% of the planet's surface. Despite this wealth of life, less than 10% of our vast oceans have been explored by humans. This week, Google has released a new version of their popular Google Earth program which will give users the ability to discover the depths of our oceans.

More than two thousand satellites are currently in orbit. They measure the earth's surface characteristics, ocean currents, clouds and the gaseous content of the atmosphere. One of the oldest programs is Landsat. Run by both the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Landsat is still widely used today because it provides its data to researchers free of charge.

Sustainable development supports the concept of lifting populations out of poverty without endangering resources and the environment for future generations. A wide range of past projects have attempted to achieve these objectives, but the United Nations Millennium Declaration in 2000 established for the first time an extensive partnership among nations to reduce global poverty through a specified framework of time-bound objectives. These goals and objectives, which are to be met by 2015, were agreed upon by 189 nations and have come to be known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (Table 1).

This year marks the halfway point in efforts to achieve the MDGs, and progress has been promising in some areas such as primary education and vaccination rates. However, demographic trends are interfering with efforts to achieve other goals. For example, increasing population exacerbates extreme poverty even as work is being done to mitigate it. Organizations such as the Center for Global Development (CGD) have recognized this impediment. Last month, CGD launched an initiative that calls for more adequate consideration of demographics in the formation of development policy.

Capturing and eating fish and rainforest wildlife, including large primates, for human sustenance has been practiced for generations. However, as human populations have grown and demand for these resources has increased, species in coral reefs and tropical rainforests--the most diverse ecosystem types on the planet--have been put in jeopardy.

Though both ailing fisheries and dwindling wildlife populations have received much attention and attempted remediation, these problems have been difficult to tackle because of competing interests among conservationists and fishermen/hunters who base their livelihood on harvesting wildlife. Two recently released studies offer new insight into the problem of harvesting wildlife, and perhaps even a solution.

More than 2,400 scientists and policymakers convened in Stockholm last month for the 2008 World Water Week summit. This year's summit was focused on sanitation access, although a variety of interdisciplinary research was presented for discussion.

Inadequate sanitation is a known cause of infectious diseases and death in the developing world. In response, improvement in sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation became part of the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Mother Nature's calendar has been showing increasingly less resemblance to the seasonal patterns of the past, with tangible effects on both humans and the natural environment. Pollen-releasing grasses, shrubs and trees have started to appear earlier, expanding the hay fever season. Drought, forest fires and invasive alien species have caused serious damage to some of the world's most vulnerable ecosystems.