NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/8650

Text File | 1992-11-23 | 4.6 KB | 139 lines

Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
From: Ted Shapin <[e-mail]>
Subject: If the World Were a Village of 1000 People
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Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:20:14 GMT
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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 [phone].

- - -

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:  [e-mail]
 Beckman Instruments, Inc.     Phone:     [phone]
 2500 Harbor, M/S X-11           FAX:     [phone]
 Fullerton, CA  92634-3100