The Human Footprint

National Geographic aired a show this week called The Human Footprint. The show is about how much we each consume, and how that consumption impacts our planet. It’s a bit overwhelming to say the least.

Elizabeth Vargas narrates the show, and babbles out an overwhelming number of statistics like the average number of oranges you will eat in a lifetime will be 12,888. And then she shows you just how staggering this amount is by dropping 12,888 oranges into a living room!

Did you know it takes 43 trees to make the newspaper one person reads in a lifetime?

Or that it takes crude oil to make diapers?

How about the fact that by the time you buy your new jeans, they have likely traveled 17,000 miles before you even put them on? How’s that for impacting the planet?

The show also said that the average person will get to know 1700 people in their lifetime.

That means in your entire lifetime, you will likely have only met two or three people who have the ability to spot deception like I do.