50 Facts That Should Change The World
That's the title of Jessica Williams's book of powerful and intriguing truths. Others have summarised this list elsewhere. But sometimes it is also important to juxtapose various truths and see how they work with (or against) each other.
Truth #20, for example, says that cars kill two people every minute. Truth #22 says that 150,000 people are killed by global warming every year. Do some calculations. #20 will show you that 120 people are killed by cars per hour; 2,880 per day; 1,051,200 per year. In other words, cars kill almost exactly 7 times as many people per year than global warming does. And since cars also contribute to global warming, we should just eliminate cars!
Really?
Well, there are about 6.8 billion people on this planet today. I checked here. This means that approximately 0.015% of the world's population dies because of cars. And if you examine the ticker on that site, the rate of births far outweighs the rate of deaths from ALL sources of death. And nobody has bothered, as far as I know, to measure how many lives are saved by combustion-engine-driven transport every day.
If you were particularly callous, you might conclude that #20 and #22 do not matter as much as finding ways to provide a better life for those still living. But I'm not quite so callous, I think; as Donne wrote, "Each man's death diminishes me." Yet, I am also quite sure that most of us don't think of such things much. Even when we do, the breadth and range of vision required are too great for comfort, the ability to do significantly much seems too small.
The niggling voice of one Robert Browning, however, still speaks to me. He said, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp; or what's a heaven for?" Ah, that Browning. He bugs me all the time, an incurable optimist about humanity who also once wrote, "The best is yet to be; the last of life, for which the first was made."
Truth #20, for example, says that cars kill two people every minute. Truth #22 says that 150,000 people are killed by global warming every year. Do some calculations. #20 will show you that 120 people are killed by cars per hour; 2,880 per day; 1,051,200 per year. In other words, cars kill almost exactly 7 times as many people per year than global warming does. And since cars also contribute to global warming, we should just eliminate cars!
Really?
Well, there are about 6.8 billion people on this planet today. I checked here. This means that approximately 0.015% of the world's population dies because of cars. And if you examine the ticker on that site, the rate of births far outweighs the rate of deaths from ALL sources of death. And nobody has bothered, as far as I know, to measure how many lives are saved by combustion-engine-driven transport every day.
If you were particularly callous, you might conclude that #20 and #22 do not matter as much as finding ways to provide a better life for those still living. But I'm not quite so callous, I think; as Donne wrote, "Each man's death diminishes me." Yet, I am also quite sure that most of us don't think of such things much. Even when we do, the breadth and range of vision required are too great for comfort, the ability to do significantly much seems too small.
The niggling voice of one Robert Browning, however, still speaks to me. He said, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp; or what's a heaven for?" Ah, that Browning. He bugs me all the time, an incurable optimist about humanity who also once wrote, "The best is yet to be; the last of life, for which the first was made."
Labels: Global Warming, Jessica Williams, Robert Browning, Statistics, Vision
etched with acid at 2:18:00 pm
1 Comments:
"The best is yet to be; the last of life, for which the first was made."
*giggle*
Post a Comment
<< Home