Notations From the Social Grid (Weekly Edition): On the State of the Earth

 

Key learnings from the new State of the Earth report Between Earth Day last Friday and Arbor Day on April 29, the last full week of April has many opportunities for Americans to reflect on the environment. The third-annual State of the Earth report is here to aid in that. This new report features data from government agencies responsible for safeguarding and measuring the nation's air, land, and water conservation, and energy production. What do the numbers say? Here's a preview:   Last year, Mississippi and Massachusetts had 10+ inches of precipitation above their 20th century averages. Meanwhile, Montana and Oregon had the largest drops in average annual precipitation.   The federal government owned 28% of American land as of 2018, down 5% since 1990. Transportation has been the largest source of emissions since 2017. Electricity generation and transportation create more than half of all US emissions, almost entirely through carbon dioxide-producing fossil fuel combustion.    Together, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service operate 71% of federal lands, with the National Park Service operating 13%. All states contended with warmer temperatures than usual in 2021. Minnesota had the biggest difference: its average annual temperature was 4.2 F° above its 20th century average. Maine and North Dakota's averages were 4.1 F° higher.  The report also has an interactive spotlight on air quality. See how conditions in your state stack up against the rest of the nation. Compare different regions by population density or location for a sense of where air quality is trending up or down. Visit the State of the Earth to get started. How much carbon do US forests store? The United States is home to 8% of the world's forestland. And though centuries of deforestation had diminished US forests, recent protection efforts have reversed this trend somewhat. Data on the country's forests dates back to 1630, more than a hundred years before the nation's founding; here are the facts on how forests offset greenhouse gases, where they're growing, and more. Between 1987 and 2017, forestland grew by 52,000 square miles, which is about the size of Louisiana.    Alaska is home to the country's largest national forest: Tongass National Forest. As for percentage of land covered by forest, the top state is Maine, with 89% of its land forested.   US forests stored 58.7 billion metric tons of carbon in 2020, offsetting 14% of carbon dioxide emissions and 11% of greenhouse gases nationwide. The amount of carbon that forests can store fluctuates due to wildfires, timber harvesting, and newly added forestland.     Acreage burned in wildfires increased in recent decades. The average from 1983 to 1992 was 2.7 million acres. From 2011 to 2020, the average was 7.5 million. Click here to see three additional charts on forests' role in absorbing carbon dioxide and much more.  What else is new at USAFacts? The current federal debt is $30.3 trillion. The federal debt increased at an annual average rate of 5.6% from 1980 to 2019. In 2020, it increased by 18% compared to the year before. Learn more about how pandemic spending impacted the federal debt here.   The federal government imposed eviction moratoriums via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act and through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), preventing landlords from evicting tenants during the pandemic. The Supreme Court ruled the CDC's ban unconstitutional on August 26, 2021. Here's how evictions have increased since then. One last fact Americans are less likely to be married than in years past. In 1949, 78.8% of all households had married couples. By last year, 47.3% had married couples.