“If you are different from me, my brother, far from damaging me, you enrich me.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The world population
In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. As of March 2016, it was estimated at 7.4 billion (current world population)
Why the Real Victim of Overpopulation Will Be the Environment?
The 7 Billion Day is a sobering reminder of our planet’s predicament. We are increasing by 10,000 an hour. The median UN forecast is 9.3 billion by 2050, but the range varies by 2.5 billion — the total world population in 1950 — depending on how we work it out.
Every additional person needs food, water and energy, and produces more waste and pollution, so ratchets up our total impact on the planet, and ratchets down everyone else’s share — the rich far more than the poor. By definition, total impact and consumption are worked out by measuring the average per person multiplied by the number of people. Thus all environmental (and many economic and social) problems are easier to solve with fewer people, and ultimately impossible with ever more.
Until the 7 billion threshold was approached recently, population growth had largely disappeared as a major international issue — a far cry from the 1970s, when Malthusian thought was back in fashion and countries like India and China were taking brutally coercive steps to curb population growth. That’s partially a reaction to those dark days — right-thinking environmentalists didn’t want to be associated with unjust policies, and so population became the green issue that dare not speak its name. But I also think that when the 6 billionth person rolled around — just 12 years ago — the world was in a very different and much brighter place. It’s a lot easier to feel sunny about the idea of the planet growing more crowded when the global economy is humming, there are few major conflicts ongoing and you can take a water bottle through airport security.
Indicators of development
The extent to which a country has developed may be assessed by considering a range of narrow and broad indicators, including per capita income, life expectancy, education, and the extent of poverty.
The UNDP (UN development programme) describes development as: ‘the three essentials of development include the ability to lead a long and healthy life, to acquire knowledge, and to have a decent standard of life’.
Some people also believe that the political health of a country is an important factor in its development, which includes freedom of speech and demonstration.
Development can be measured in many different ways (as shown in the diagram below).
Main development points:
Employment
Poverty
Health
Education
Social Cohesion
Safety and Security
Good Governance
Aspects of Development that cannot be measured:
Freedom
Security
Sustainability
conservation
GNP & GDP
If you were to judge a countries development by its economic status then its GNP (Gross National Product) and GDP would fit accurately. These measure the net income of a country and, though they can be very effective, don’t take into consideration the living standards of the country. For example with Saudi Arabia, with a high GDP it ranks well on a global scale but its living conditions, health care and education are poor.
HDI & PQLI
The HDI (Human Development Index) is a way to measure well being within a country. This is mainly a social measurement because it takes into consideration education, which is adult literacy rate and years of schooling, health care which is judged by life expectancy and finally the economic factor of GDP. The HDI measures each of these factors between 0 and 1, one being the best. The HDI is a very useful measure of development because it includes economic and social indicators which reduces any anomalies. The PQLI is very similar to the HDI but it includes infant mortality and it’s measured between 0 and 100.
Problems with Development Indicators
The development indicators above all have their advantages and disadvantages, the main problems with them are that they only focus on certain aspects of development, socal, economic, political or even enironmental. Because of this there tend to be countries with will rank highly due to part of their country but realistically aren’t as good as another country.
Showing Equality
Lorenz Curve
The Lorenz curve is a graphical representation of the distribution or equality of something. The straight line from (0,0) to (100,100) shows perfect equality, whereas the line from (0,0) to (0,100) shows perfect inequality. The line drawn between these two lines is the actual measurement. The graph (shown above) shows the distribution of wealth through the whole country and it shows that the wealth is not equally distributed.
Gini Coefficient
The Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality. It is the lightly shaded blue area of the curve and the higher the Gini coefficent the higher the inequality. The Gini coefficient gives a statistical number to measure inequality rather than a graphical display. The Gini cofficient is always measured between 0 and 1.
What and Where is the International Date Line (IDL)?
he International Date Line (IDL) is an imaginary line of longitude on the Earth’s surface located at about 180 degrees east (or west) of the Greenwich Meridian.
The date line is shown as an uneven black vertical line in the Time Zone Map above and marks the divide where the date changes by one day. It makes some deviations from the 180-degree meridian to avoid dividing countries in two, especially in the Polynesia region.
The time difference between either side of the International Date Line is not always exactly 24 hours because of local time zone variations.
If you travel around the world, changing standard time by one hour each time you enter a new time zone, then a complete circuit would mean that you adjusted your clock or watch time by 24 hours. This would lead to a difference of one day between the date on your clock and the real calendar date. To avoid this, countries are on either side of the International Date Line which runs down the middle of the Pacific Ocean. If you cross the date line moving east, you subtract a day, whereas if you are moving west you add a day.
GMT vs. UTC
The Greenwich Meridian is a north-south line selected as the zero-reference line for astronomical observations. The line in Greenwich in London, UK represents the world’s prime meridian – longitude zero degrees. Every place on Earth is measured in terms of its distance east or west from this line.
The United Kingdom observes GMT only in the winter.
The line divides the Earth’s eastern and western hemispheres just as the equator divides the northern and southern hemispheres.
The Earth’s crust moves very slightly on an ongoing basis so the prime meridian’s exact position is also moving very slightly. However, the prime meridian’s original reference remains to be the Airy Transit Circle in the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, even if the exact location of the line may move to either side of the transit circle’s meridian.
The Royal Observatory in Greenwich is the home to the time zone named Greenwich Mean Time –GMT. This time zone was first adopted as the world’s time standard at the Washington Meridian Conference in 1884. However, GMT is now loosely interchanged with UTC to refer to time kept on the Greenwich meridian (longitude zero).
GLOBALISATION 