We should not split society into “Developed” and “Developing” countries
Today, most people, 75%, live in middle-income countries
Only 9% of today’s population lives in low-income countries
We can split world population into four income groups(income per day):
- Level I – under $2
- Level II – $2 – $8
- Level III – $8 – $32
- Level IV – more than 32$
Just 200 years ago, 85% of the world population was still on Level I, in extreme poverty
Back in 1800 life expectancy was roughly 30 years everywhere in the world, today it is 72 years.
In 1960, 15 to 40 million people, starved to death that year in China, it was probably the world’s largest ever man-made famine.
When you see bad news, ask whether equally positive news would reached you.
Until 1800, women gave birth to six children on average.
Single factor that hasa strong connection with large families: extreme poverty
Parents in extreme poverty need many children for: child labor but also to have extra children in case some children die. It is the countries with the highest child mortality rates, like Somalia, Chad, Mali and Niger, where women have the most babies: between five and eight.
For ten days or so in 2015 the world was watching the images from Nepal, where 9000 people had died. During the same 10 days, diarrhea from contaminated drinking water also killed 9000 children across the world. There were no camera teams around as these children fainted in the arms of their parents.
In 2016 a total of 40 million commercial passenger flights landed safely at their destinations. Only ten ended fatal accidents. Of course, those were the ones the journalist wrote about: 0.000025 % percent of the total. Safe flights are not newsworthy.
Over the last 70 years, flights has gotten 2100 times safer.
On US soil, 3172 people died from terrorism over the last 20 years, an average of 159 a year. During those same years, alcohol contributed to the death of 1.4 million people in theUnited States – an average of 69000 a year.
The large numbers – total emissions per nation – needed to be divided by the population of each country to give meaningful and comparable measure. Whether measuring HIV, AIDS, GPD, mobile phone sales, internet users or CO2 emissions, a per capita measurement – rate per person – will almost be more meaningful.
Most of the human-emitted CO2 accumulated in the atmosphere was emitted over the last 50 years by countries that are now on Level 4. Canada’s per capita CO2 emissions are still twice as high as China’s and eight times as high India’s.
We need Olympic Games, international trade, educational exchange programs, free internet – anything that lets us meet across ethic groups and country borders.
Martin Novak 