hellobeautifulcreatures

It's hard to imagine what a human being consumes in a lifetime. All the food you eat, the potatoes, the fruits, the bread, the chickens. And everything you drink, and all the clothes you buy and toss. All the furniture and appliances and toothbrushes and bath products and newspapers. The list goes on and on. If the rest of the world consumed at the rate Americans do, we would need five planets worth of resources to cover it. And it is indeed possible to add it all up. For a special called "Human Footprint," the National Geographic Channel calculated all the energy, resources and products used by each American over an average lifetime. Watch "Human Footprint" on the National Geographic Channel . Over the two-hour broadcast, the consumption of a lifetime is piled up and put on display. Got milk? It does a body good, and Americans consume 13,056 pints of it in a lifetime. A sea of 28, 433 rubber duckies represents the number of showers taken in a lifetime. A ...

Image caption The survey challenged assumptions about how long people spent showering each day A survey, using innovative technology, has offered an insight into people's showering habits. The average shower lasted eight minutes - much longer than previous studies suggested , using almost as much water and energy as the average bath. The information was compiled from "data loggers" that recorded 2,600 showers by 100 families over a 10-day period. The survey was carried out by producer Unilever, which wanted to find out how people were using their products. According to the data, an eight-minute shower used 62 litres of hot water, compared with an average bath's 80 litres. And, it suggested, that if people were using a power shower - an appliance that adds extra pressure to the water flow - then an eight-minute shower would require twice as much water and energy as a bath. Hilde Hendrickx, a behavioural scientist in Unilever's R&D department, said that the...

Celebrate Earth Day by Planting a Tree" width="300" height="200" />Every April 22, millions of people in nearly 200 countries celebrate Earth Day , and I’m one of them. Originating in 1970, Earth Day is an opportunity for all of us to reflect on how we can make our Earth a better place. It’s a time to be mindful of your impact on the Earth and challenge yourself to adopt new, environmentally friendly habits that conserve resources, save money, and encourage healthy living all-around. In fact, with wonderful benefits like those, doesn’t it make sense to live every day like it’s Earth Day? Well, you can. Over the years, my family and I have used Earth Day as a starting point to implement new and creative changes in our lives. Here are 30 ways we celebrate Earth Day that you and your family can try, too. Some of them may seem small, but small changes add up and if you sustain that change for the rest of your life, it will profoundly lighten your environmen...