ETCETERA / Index

Average age of British Airways' 34-strong fleet

of BAC One-Eleven 500 aircraft: 20

Tons of global-warming carbon dioxide emitted

by British Airways flights per day: 32,000

Years between major tidal floodings predicted

at Cardiff by 2030 on present global-warming

trends: 3-5

Chests of UK opium destroyed by Chinese authorities in 1838, prompting Britain's seizure

of Hong Kong and enforcement of legal

opium in China: 20,000

McDonald's restaurants in the USA, where rubbish

recycling is being practised: 8,500

McDonald's restaurants in the UK where rubbish

recycling is being practised: 3

Year of extinction of the dodo bird

in Mauritius: 1670

Year of the first British laws to protect birds: 1868

Box office take of Hollywood film Batman Returns

in the first three days: dollars 47,000,000

Year of coffee-drinking's introduction to Paris: 1643

Gallons of coffee drunk by Americans

per capita each year: 25

Urban populations in developed countries

by 2000: 900,000,000

Urban populations in developing countries

by 2000: 1,900,000,000

New cars sold in EC states each year: 12,000,000

Sources: British Airways; ibid; Friends of the Earth; Terence McKenna: Food of the Gods; The Economist; McDonald's; Scientific American, Vol 267 No 1; ibid; New Statesman & Society, Vol 5, 210; Terence McKenna, op cit; Euro Monitor Consumer USA 1992; Mustafa Tolba: Saving Our Planet; ibid; Time Books: The Single European Market