The Earth Status Report 2006
If the population of the Earth was reduced to that of a small town with 100 people, it would look something like this:57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 Americans (northern and southern)
8 Africans
52 women
48 men
70 coloured-skins
30 caucasians
89 heterosexuals
11 homosexuals
6 people would own 59% of the whole world wealth and all of them will be from the United States of America
80 would have bad living conditions
70 would be uneducated
50 underfed
1 would die
2 would be born
1 would have a computer
1 (only one) will have higher education
Put it in real terms...
This morning, if you woke up healthy, then you are happier than the 1 million people that will not survive next week.
If you never suffered a war, the loneliness of the jail cell, the agony of torture, or hunger, you are happier than 500 million people in the world.
If you can enter into a church / mosque without fear of jail or death, you are happier than 3 million people in the world.
If there is a food in your fridge, you have shoes and clothes, you have a bed and a roof, you are richer than 75% of the people in the world.
If you have a bank account, money in your wallet and some coins in the money-box, you belong to the 8% of the people in the world who are well-to-do.
If you read this you don't belong to the 200 million people that cannot read.
Are you guilt-tripping yet? I felt kinda bad. But if you take something from this, i hope that it is:
1) that we are very very lucky
2) that there are many others who are not so lucky
3) that we are able to help them
4) that we should.
Like Michael Jackson said:
"No message could've been any clearer - if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make that change."
For further insight, visit Poverty.com
4 comments:
I'd always think the best thing to do is to save those u can save n those worth saving, those that if u save them, will help them to get outta their hellish life...n not just jumping back into the fire...cos some ppl r just like that...no matter how many times u try to save them,they disappoint u... they r gona jump straight back into the hell n there aint much u can do...n sometimes its so frustrating cos it feels like a waste of effort
hard to define at the time though, no? Sometimes you just have to have blind faith in humanity, because then you will know you did your best and anything else is up to them.
What gets me is that Americans and Europeans are distinguished, but this LARGE MASS of Asians are lumped together. And Australia's missing!
Kind of interesting stats. But one thing is glaringly wrong - only 1% of people in the world own a computer? That's 'only' about 60 million people and there sure are way more than that. Same can probably be said for the Higher Education statistic. And the top 6% of the world's wealthy are all Americans? I don't think so!
...and Jeannie - Europeans and Americans are shown seperately as it only a division by continents not by ethnicity.
Pease and Love x
dear jc,
good point about the continents. =)
too many sociology lessons means you forget political divisions huh?
sorry for the glaringly wrong. like i said, the authoritative source of an e-mail fwd.
hope it made you think nonetheless.
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