Global Population Growth Box by Box: Hans
Rosling's TED Talk
This is a presentation on the future of
global population growth given by Hans Rosling with the aid of Ikea boxes.
In 1960 the global population was 3 billion,
one third of which was in the developed world. These people were rich, healthy and
well-educated with small families. Their dream was to save for a car. The rest from developing countries, on the other hand, were struggling to have enough food and
to save for a pair of shoes.
In 2010 there were 7 billion people in the world. Their situation can be summarised as follows:
-The 2 billion poor were still as poor as
they had been in 1960.
- Four billion people lived in the new
emerging economies, dreaming of buying a bicycle, and later on, a car.
- The 1 billion rich were even richer,
saving to fly to exotic destinations.
Thus, the gap between the rich and the poor
became wider, while most people were somewhere in the middle.
The forecast
for 2015 is that the level of welfare in places such as Shanghai will reach that
of the western societies. At the same time, there will still be 3 billion people in emerging economies dreaming of an electric car if climate change is
under control and energy is still cheap. Moreover, the number of the poor looking for food will increase by 50 to 100 per cent. Based on available data, these poor people tend to have
large families and low child survival rates.
The solution that Mr Rosling proposes for a
sustainable global population growth is to continue to improve child
survival upto 90 % and to reduce family size by vaccination and family planning
respectively. This is a way to ensure the well-being of the whole global
population.
Along these lines, he considers himself to
be a "possibilist".
In this process, he sees developed
countries as the foundation of the modern world.
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