The Year In Green Numbers

With the end of the holiday period, normal blogging will resume shortly. Meanwhile, here's a pick of some 'green numbers' from 2011:

5,000

- blackbirds that dropped dead from the sky in Arkansas #

84%

- people who oppose government plans to sell off England's forests and woodlands to the highest bidder #

40%

- overstatement of Saudi oil reserves as revealed in a Wikileaks cable #

$8 billion

- fine imposed on Chevron for polluting the Amazaon #

14

- effective population of Siberian tigers in the wild #

600

- deaths in Scotland each year from air pollution #

216 tonnes

- oil that leaked from a pipe in the North Sea

60 square miles

- size of the surface slick from that oil leak

294

- oil spills per year in the North Sea 2004-2009

4.24 million km²

- minimum of Arctic sea ice this year, the lowest ever #

45%

- increase in global CO² emissions 1990 - 2010 #

590 million

- plastic bags used in Scotland each year #

£470 billion

- subsidies to fossil fuel producers worldwide #

50

- earthquakes in Blackpool caused by fracking #

£750 million

- investment in Scottish renewable energy in 2011 #

60 seconds

- time "saved" by car drivers after the government scrapped a bus lane on the M4, claiming it was a drain on the economy #

A$23 per tonne

- Australia's new carbon tax #

11th

- where 2011 ranks globally in the warmest years since records began #

2nd

- where 2011 ranks in the UK in the warmest years since records began #

40 years

- time it will take to dismantle the Fukushima nuclear plant