Post by Swallow on Mar 2, 2006 14:05:06 GMT 11
Imagine the world is a village of 1000 people. Who are its residents?
584 Asians
124 Africans
95 East and West Europeans
84 Latin Americans
55 Russians and citizens of the former Soviet republics
52 North Americans
6 people of the Pacific (that’s us Aussies in that lot)
The people of the village have considerable difficulty in communicating.
165 speak Mandarin
86 speak English
83 speak Hindu/Urdu
64 speak Spanish
58 speak Russian
37 speak Arabic
This list accounts for the native tongues of only half the villages. The other half speak in decending order of frequency:
Bengali
Portuguese
Indonesian
Japanese
German
French
And over 5000 other languages
In this village of 1000 there are:
329 Christians (among them 187 Catholics, 84 Protestants 31 Orthodox)
178 Muslims
167 people who identify themselves as non-religious
132 Hindus
60 Buddhists
45 atheists
3 Jews
86 people who belong to other religions
One third of these 1000 people are children, and only 60 are over the age of 65. Half of the children are immunised against preventable infectious disease such as measles and polio. Just under half of the married women in the village have access to and use modern contraceptives.
This year 28 babies will be born. 10 people will die, three of them from lack of food, one from cancer, two of them from having babies. One person will be infected with the HIV virus. With 28 births and 10 deaths, the population of the village next year will be 1018.
In this 1000 community, 200 people will receive 80% of the income, another 200 receive 2% of the income. Only 70 people own an automobile (keep in mind, a fair few of them will own more than one car). About one third have access to clean, safe, drinking water.
Of the 670 adults in the village, half of them are illiterate.
The village has six acres of land per person.
700 acres are cropland
1400 acres are woodland
2000 acres are desert, tundra, pavement and wasteland (dumps)
Of this land, the woodland is declining rapidly; the wasteland is increasing. The other land categories are roughly stable. The village allocated 83% of its fertilizer to 40% of its cropland—that is owned by the richest and best-fed 270 people. Excess fertilizer running off this land causes pollution in lakes and wells. The remaining 60% of the land, with its 17 % of the fertilizer, produces 28% of the food grains and feeds 73% of the people. The average grain yield of that land is one-third the harvest achieved by the richer villagees.
In this village of 1000 people there are:
5 soldiers
7 teachers
1 doctor
3 refuges driven from their homes by war or drought.
The village has a total yearly budget, public and private, of over $3 million—$3000 per person, if it were distributed evenly. Of this total:
$181,000 goes to weapons and warfare
$159,000 goes to education
$132,000 goes to healthcare
The village has buried beneath it enough explosive power in nuclear weapons to blow itself up many times over. These weapons are under the control of just 100 of the people.
The other 900 people are watching them with deep anxiety, wondering whether they can learn to get along; and if they do, whether they might set off the weapons anyway through inattention or technical bungling; and if they ever decide to dismantle the weapons, where in the global village they would dispose of the radioactive materials of the weapons that they made.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
“Global Village” pinched from Comparative Politics of the Third World, 2003, Green and Luehrmann
584 Asians
124 Africans
95 East and West Europeans
84 Latin Americans
55 Russians and citizens of the former Soviet republics
52 North Americans
6 people of the Pacific (that’s us Aussies in that lot)
The people of the village have considerable difficulty in communicating.
165 speak Mandarin
86 speak English
83 speak Hindu/Urdu
64 speak Spanish
58 speak Russian
37 speak Arabic
This list accounts for the native tongues of only half the villages. The other half speak in decending order of frequency:
Bengali
Portuguese
Indonesian
Japanese
German
French
And over 5000 other languages
In this village of 1000 there are:
329 Christians (among them 187 Catholics, 84 Protestants 31 Orthodox)
178 Muslims
167 people who identify themselves as non-religious
132 Hindus
60 Buddhists
45 atheists
3 Jews
86 people who belong to other religions
One third of these 1000 people are children, and only 60 are over the age of 65. Half of the children are immunised against preventable infectious disease such as measles and polio. Just under half of the married women in the village have access to and use modern contraceptives.
This year 28 babies will be born. 10 people will die, three of them from lack of food, one from cancer, two of them from having babies. One person will be infected with the HIV virus. With 28 births and 10 deaths, the population of the village next year will be 1018.
In this 1000 community, 200 people will receive 80% of the income, another 200 receive 2% of the income. Only 70 people own an automobile (keep in mind, a fair few of them will own more than one car). About one third have access to clean, safe, drinking water.
Of the 670 adults in the village, half of them are illiterate.
The village has six acres of land per person.
700 acres are cropland
1400 acres are woodland
2000 acres are desert, tundra, pavement and wasteland (dumps)
Of this land, the woodland is declining rapidly; the wasteland is increasing. The other land categories are roughly stable. The village allocated 83% of its fertilizer to 40% of its cropland—that is owned by the richest and best-fed 270 people. Excess fertilizer running off this land causes pollution in lakes and wells. The remaining 60% of the land, with its 17 % of the fertilizer, produces 28% of the food grains and feeds 73% of the people. The average grain yield of that land is one-third the harvest achieved by the richer villagees.
In this village of 1000 people there are:
5 soldiers
7 teachers
1 doctor
3 refuges driven from their homes by war or drought.
The village has a total yearly budget, public and private, of over $3 million—$3000 per person, if it were distributed evenly. Of this total:
$181,000 goes to weapons and warfare
$159,000 goes to education
$132,000 goes to healthcare
The village has buried beneath it enough explosive power in nuclear weapons to blow itself up many times over. These weapons are under the control of just 100 of the people.
The other 900 people are watching them with deep anxiety, wondering whether they can learn to get along; and if they do, whether they might set off the weapons anyway through inattention or technical bungling; and if they ever decide to dismantle the weapons, where in the global village they would dispose of the radioactive materials of the weapons that they made.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
“Global Village” pinched from Comparative Politics of the Third World, 2003, Green and Luehrmann
