3. “ “There were rumors of unfathomable things, and because we could not fathom them we failed to believe them, until we had no choice it was too late.” - Nicole Krause

4. Source: www.blacksmithinstitute.org/photos1.php

5. Cancer rates in Sumgayit, Azerbaijan are 22 -51% higher than the national average in Azerbaijan. Source: www.blacksmithinstitute.org/photos1.php

6. A young coal miner in Linfen, China. The city of 3 million has the worst air quality in China. Source: www.blacksmithinstitute.org/photos1.php

7. A woman drinks water from an exposed pipe in Sukinda, India, a city on the “Worst Polluted” List. Contaminated water by hexavalent chromium have caused increased rates of infertility, birth defects, and still births in this city of 2.6 million. Source: www.blacksmithinstitute.org/photos1.php

8. Norilsk, Russia has the world’s largest heavy metals smelting complex. Its operation releases 4 million tons of Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni, As, Se, and Zn in the air annually.

9. Sasha is one of the children at the Vesnova Orphanage, near Chernobyl, Ukraine. More than five million children are living in the nuclear fallout affected areas in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Twenty-one years after the disaster, abandoned mental and physically handicapped children are being found and taken in by the orphanages. Source: www.blacksmithinstitute.org/photos1.php

13. The area of the Wilkins Ice Shelf is approximately the size of Northern Ireland

14. …. or equal in size to 6 – 7 Manhattan Islands.