From NHUEBNER@PEARL.TUFTS.EDU Thu Dec 3 20:04 EST 1992 Received: from Pearl.Tufts.EDU by cads.cee.tufts.edu with SMTP (16.8/16.2) id AA27693; Thu, 3 Dec 92 20:04:33 -0500 Return-Path: Received: from PEARL.TUFTS.EDU by PEARL.TUFTS.EDU (PMDF #12054) id <01GRW3P9LH688X7O29@PEARL.TUFTS.EDU>; Thu, 3 Dec 1992 20:06 EDT Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 20:06 EDT From: NILS Subject: Global Village of 1000 people To: JCOATE@cads.cee.tufts.edu Message-Id: <01GRW3P9LH688X7O29@PEARL.TUFTS.EDU> X-Vms-To: JIM X-Vms-Cc: MSCHOLAN Status: RO Hey, I found this on a net and thought you might like it. Message-ID: <1992Nov23.192014.17744@mont.cs.missouri.edu> This was prepared by Donella H. Meaderos as part of a beautiful large poster showing the earth from space and made for the alternative environmental conference in Rio. Available from Value Earth, 707 White House Pike, C-2, Absecon, New Jersey, 08201. Phone 609-641-2400. - - - If the world were a village of 1,000 people, it would include: 584 Asians 124 Africans 95 East and West Europeans 84 Latin Americans 55 Soviets (including for the moment Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and other national groups. 52 North Americans 6 Australians and New Zealanders The people of the village have considerable difficulty in communicating: 165 people speak Mandarin 86 English 83 Hindu/Urdu 64 Spanish 58 Russian 37 Arabic That list accounts for the mother tongues of only half the villagers. The other half speak (in descending order of frequency) Bengali, Portuguese, Indonesian, Japanese, German, French, and 200 other languages. In this village of 1,000 there are: 329 Christians (among them 187 Catholics, 84 Protestants, 31 Orthodox) 178 Moslems 167 "non-religious" 132 Hindus 60 Buddhists 45 Atheists 3 Jews 86 all other religions One-third (330) of the 1,000 people in the world village are children and only 60 are over the age of 65. Half the children are immunized against preventable infectious diseases such as measles and polio. Just under half of the married women in the village have access to and use modern contraceptives. The first year 28 babies are born. That year 10 people die, 3 of them for lack of food, 1 from cancer, 2 of the deaths are of babies born within the year. One person of the 1,000 is infected with the HIV virus; that person most likely has not yet developed a full-blown case of AIDS. With the 28 births and 10 deaths, the population of the village in the second year is 1,018. In this thousand-person community, 200 people receive 75 percent of the income; another 200 receive only two percent of the income. Only 70 people of the 1,000 own an automobile (although some of the 70 own more than one automobile). About one-third have access to clean safe drinking water. Of the 670 adults in the village, half are illiterate. The village has six acres of land per person, 6,000 acres in all, of which 700 acres are crop land 1,400 acres pasture 1,900 acres woodland 2,000 acres desert, tundra, pavement and other wasteland The woodland is declining rapidly; the wasteland is increasing. The other land categories are roughly stable. The village allocates 83 percent of its fertilizer to 40 percent of its crop land -- that owned by the richest and best-fed 270 people. Excess fertilizer running off this land causes pollution in lakes and wells. The remaining 60 percent of the land, with its 17 percent of the fertilizer, produces 28 percent of the food grains and feeds for 73 percent of the people. The average grain yield on that land is one-third the harvest achieved by the richer villagers. In the village of 1,000 people there are: 5 soldiers 7 teachers 1 doctor 3 refugees driven from home by war or drought The village has a total budget each year, public and private of over $3 million -- $3,000 per person if it is distributed evenly (which, we have already seen, it isn't). Of the total $3 million: $181,000 goes to weapons and warfare $159,000 for education $132,000 for health care The village has buried beneath it enough explosive power in nuclear weapons to blow itself to smithereens many times over. These weapons are in the control of just 100 people. The other 900 people are watching them with deep anxiety, wondering whether they can learn to get along together; 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 world village they can dispose of the radioactive materials of which the weapons are made. - - end - - ------ Ted Shapin Internet: tshapin@beckman.com Beckman Instruments, Inc. Phone: 714/961-3393 2500 Harbor, M/S X-11 FAX: 714/961-3351 Fullerton, CA 92634-3100