Thursday 27 October 2011

A harrowing thought

When you were born, you were the:

3,562,698,075th person alive on Earth

77,619,580,996th person to have lived since history began

How did we calculate that?

Both numbers have been calculated using UN Population Division figures. The first is an estimate of how many people were alive on your date of birth. It is one possible value based on global population figures and estimates of growth rates over time. Data before 1950 is less accurate than figures after that date. The second number includes calculations based on the methodology of scholar Carl Haub, who estimated how many people had been alive since 50,000 B.C. His calculation has been amended by the UN to include additional points in time.

What's next? The global population will continue to increase during your lifetime and beyond, reaching 10 billion by 2083. However, the rate of growth is expected to slow. Little of the current growth is happening in developed countries like yours.

Longer lives: Working-age people like you will be supporting increasing numbers of older people during the next decades. By 2050, there will be just 2.2 people of working age supporting every person aged 65 or older in the developed world. In Europe, this will drop to just two.

Battle for resources: It is estimated that your group of the richest countries consumes double the resources used by the rest of the world. The UN estimates that if current population and consumption trends continue, by the 2030s we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us.

Did you know? The average family size globally has declined by half since 1950 - from five children in to the current 2.5.

352 people - the amount the population has grown while you've been on this site

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Where do people get these stamps from?


Just received this letter. The one on the left is a 26p first class stamp from 1998; the one on the right is a 9p first class stamp from 1978. It just amazes me to think that some people rummage through a drawer and find stamps that have been sitting there 33 years.

Unless they bought it in the Isle of Wight I suppose. The whole place is still in 1978.

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Fight Like Apes and (2 of) the Frank and Walters - Walter's Trip

Still doing some random Youtubery while I contemplate getting this blog back on track.

I was pretty surprised to see this collaboration - after all no one covers the wonderful Frank and Walters, do they? Recorded by some guy (thanks, guy) on Thursday last week at the Bowery in Cork.