The power of ignorance_DATA, Rosling and us

 Listen to one of HANS ROSLING TED TALKS. the bestest display of data!

In HIS hands, data sings. Global trends in health and economics come to vivid life.

2.1. WRITE a 275-word summary of the talk you selected.

2.2  Answer his 4-min test and visit his project at www.Gapminder.org

  Bring your printed answer next day. We will compare results.

Global population growth, box by box

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by Carles Dueñas  

Hans Rosling presents in this Ted Talk the evolution of world population growth from 1960 and into the future. He uses Ikea boxes to support his speech, based on statistics, where each box represents one billion of people.The researcher mentions that in 1960 there were only 3 billion people in the world, where one billion belonged to the industrialized world, and two billions to the developing world. There was a big gap between the two groups, or in other words, in the industrial world, people were educated, rich, and they had small families, while in the developing countries, people were very poor and had big families. At this time, the aspiration of the people of western society was to buy a car, while in the developing world the aspiration was to have enough food for the day, and if they saved, they would buy a pair of shoes.Nevertheless, currently, this gap between these two groups has disappeared. In the last 50 years, four billions people have been added to the world population filling the gap between the poorest and the richest. Three billions of them are emerging economies which aspiration could be to buy a bike, and the remaining billion of people have even improved that situation, and their aspiration could be buy a car. There has also been an economic growth in the wealthy western population, and now their aspiration is not only to have a car, but to have a holiday and fly to a remote destination.
The speaker makes a forecast for 2050. In his opinion, one billion of the Chinese population will join the richest group. In addition, three billions of people of emerging economies will improve their situation, and now their aspiration will be to buy a car. However, the bad side is that the poorest group will increase to four billions of people, and it only will be possible to stop their growth, if they manage to get out of poverty, and as a consequence of that, they improve child survival, and they get education and family planning.The lecturer shows the evolution of global population in a graph, where every bubble represents a country. The axes of the graph are children per woman and child survival. We can see, as the years pass by, that child survival increase and families decrease as the developing countries improve their economic situation.So, to sum up, the only way of really getting world population to stop is to continue to improve child survival.

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