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Planet in numbers If the world were a village of 1,000 people, would consist of:
- Asian 584
- 124 African
- 95 East European and West
- American 84
- 55 Soviets (or what was the socialist system)
- American 52
- Australian and New Zealand 6
- 165 people speak Mandarin
- English 86
- 83 Hindi / Urdu
- Spanish 64
- Russian 58
- Arab 37
This list is the native tongues of only half of the population.
The other half speak Bengali, Portuguese, Indonesian, Japanese, German, French and 200 other languages.
In this town of 1,000 people is:
- 329 Christians (among them 187 Catholics, 84 Protestants, 31 Orthodox)
- 178 Muslims
- 167 not religious
- 132 Hindu
- 60 Buddhists
- 45 Atheists
- 3 Jews
- 86 of other religions
One third of the 1,000 people in the village are children and only 60 are over 65 years. Half of children are immunized against infectious diseases predictable as measles and polio. Only half of married women in the village have access to modern contraceptive use. This year 28 children will be born. 10 people die, 3 of them for lack of food, 1 from cancer, 2 of the deaths are children born in the year.
A person of the 1,000 is infected with the AIDS virus.
With the 28 births and 10 deaths, the population of 1,018 people will be next year.
In this community of 1,000 people, 200 receive 75% of income, another 200 receive only 2% of income.
Only 70 people from the 1,000 own an automobile (although some of the 70 have more than unautomóvil).
About a third have access to safe, clean drinking water.
Of the 670 adults in the village, half are illiterate.
The village has six acres of land per person, 6,000 in total, of which:
- 700 hectares are growing
- 1,400 hectares of pasture
- 1,900 hectares of forest
- 2,000 hectares of desert, tundra, pavement and vacant land.
The forest is declining rapidly, the wasteland is increasing. The other categories of land are more or less stable.
The village distributes 83% of its fertilizer to 40% of its arable land, which belongs to the 270 off and well fed. Excess fertilizer causes contamination of the land of lakes and wells. The remaining 60% of the land, with its 17% of fertilizer, produces 28% of food grains and feeds 73% of the people. The average grain yield on that land is one-third the harvest achieved by the richer villagers.
In this town of 1,000 people is:
- 5 soldiers
- 7 teachers
- 1 doctor
- 3 refugees driven from their homes either by war or drought.
The village has a total budget each year, public and private, from $ 3 million
- $ 3,000 per person if distributed equally.
Of the total $ 3 million:
$ 181,000 goes to weapons and war
$ 159,000 for education
$ 132,000 for health
The village has buried nuclear weapons, with enough explosive power to blow himself many times. These weapons are under the control of only 100 people.
The other 900 are watching with deep anxiety, wondering whether they can learn to get along with them, and if so, whether the weapons could explode anyway, due to a technical error or oversight, and if you ever decide to dismantle the weapons, where in the world are going to dispose of radioactive materials with which weapons
are made.
Taken from: The Street Philosopher. Translated by Sonia Munoz. Donella H. Meadows is the principal author of the controversial, disturbing and influential book "The Limits to Growth", from which we earlier text. Were printed 9 million books, translated into 29 languages.
From: nfo@fritzgestalt.com
These are data that allow us to reflect and draw conclusions. We live in an increasingly complex world where we ordinary citizens are increasingly confused and immersed in an unequal struggle between what we call "common sense" and the authentic reality of the events that happen around us. What can we do? But the harder question is: What do we leave? What means does the ordinary citizen in order to change the absurdity of a global system, which places us in the uncomfortable and frustrating condition line passive consumers?
Flank paraphrase Viktor I would say "humanity's search for meaning."
