Lots more like this on http://www.gapminder.org .

Rosling's final word is not 'this or that must be done to mend the world' (because it's already mending like never before) - but that the rich and educated (us) need to drop our cultivated ignorance and look clearly at the world and see it as it really is.

Simple as that. We the rich have all the resources to look clearly, but instead we choose to simply feed our self-serving prejudices.

That is the world's problem, not population pressure or resource depletion, but the self-dumbing of the rich.

Posted By: SteamyTeaOld Old News

The point is, the rich (well he singles out the (Murdoch-addicted) Brits for scorn) studiously maintain themselves in ignorance of same.

Further thinking about what is the 'vested interest' that keeps rich westerners in carefully-preserved ignorance of how 'they' (rest of world) are in fact 'catching up' at high rate, set to overtake 'us', by their own efforts, picking what they need from the west. Particularly, he points out, the Brits, and amongst them, most of all the most educated Brits http://www.gapminder.org/news/highlights-from-ignorance-survey-in-the-uk .

The 'vested interest' is no doubt economic self-interest. But more than that, it's emotional.

'We' really really want to go on believing we're superior in as many ways as we can think of. And we want to go on believing it's 'us' and 'them'.

Talking this morning to someone brought up in white Kenya, now working with UN agencies on development in E Africa, S America, knowing all the right things, like development and infant health leads directly to smaller families and stabilising populations (instead of the common belief that only high mortality keeps 3rd world populations in check - quite the reverse).

Then came the knockout - to her, that's the only way to persuade 'them' to stay at home, instead of migrating to UK and 'breeding like rabbits'. Spot the discrepancies.

Just as large sections of 'us' Murdoch-reading westerners think of the growing western underclass as 'them', so also the west as a whole, underclass and educated alike, is deeply hooked on seeing non-western 'them' as alien. Some people really need to feel 'us' vs 'them', 'in' vs 'out', 'normal' vs 'strange', in order to feel at all good about themselves. The Murdoch media is built on that customer base and gives it what it wants.

'We' claim the right to go anywhere in the world, for holidays, for medical treatment, to live in the sun, to work - but 'they' can't come here. What happens when whole nations, or upper classes of, equal or surpass western standards? That is the goal of my UN-agency friend. But she still can't allow that 'they' can even then be part of 'us'.

Still, it's happening anyway, so Murdoch readers, both underclass and educated, will somehow get used to it, but not before a lot more rightist pandering and sabre rattling, to catch their votes.

1. Starve
2. May be
3. No
4. yes ( well for human and some other living things, others will adapt)


I think the positive thing to take from the program is a solution is possible , even if difficult.
The stats. show population growth in the world has reached 'peak birth'
One thing we shouldn't be doing is pointing the finger of blame in the wrong place.

'I've met the enemy and it is us '

"Ways to endlessly recycle everything" That's the goal and to follow on from Tom
That's what they're trying to encourage here.
http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/
"The circular economy is a generic term for an economy that is regenerative by design. Materials flows are of two types, biological materials, designed to re-enter the biosphere, and technical materials, designed to circulate with minimal loss of quality, in turn entraining the shift towards an economy ultimately powered by renewable energy."

The good thing is the corporates like it, if they create structures and systems that keeps their product resources in their ownership through out the production, sale(lease), re-sale, refurbishment, upcycling and recycling for future production, it reduces doubt over (and the need for) future resource cost and supply allowing better long term planning, control and profit.

Posted By: fostertomGood stuff there.One problem not discussed about 'cradle to cradle' is that after manufacture, chemical combination etc, what used to once to be pure feedstock has steadily moved 'downhill' both chemically and as mixtures of materials. Separating these out and 'pumping back uphill' to pure re-useability will require massive energy input - no amount of tech ingenuity can change that basic fact..

This is where 'design' comes in. Selection of materials that can easily be returned to pure feedstock. Design and creation of new materials that have this capability, to suit requirements where current feedstock can't be easily be restructured , upcycled . This requires a bit investment in 'green' chemistry to aid the design process.
Yes Renewable or free energy is the only sustainable source, so we'll have to go with renewable for now

Posted By: jamesingram"up to 80 percent of CO2 emissions from German industry could be captured and reused by rooftop greenhouses that profitably produce crops"

but 99% (?) of that wd immediately escape from the greenhouse just the same? 1% or something wd be captured as biomass.

So this isn't a sequestration ploy (except, as a one-off (reversible) if it led to more plants currently growing in the world), just plugging into an extg. resource stream to increase production (and accelerate the carbon cycle). Good tho.

Would it be possible to design synthetics that could be deconstructed without this cascade downhill ?
If not then they need to degrade to a levels or stages where other uses are found for them. Ultimately at the end of the cycle do they become useless? I'm thinking of the need to create or use existing technical nutrient that mimic the organic nutrient cycle, so at end of life they convert to an energy feedstock . In simple terms like compost .


"Waste does not exist when the biological and technical components (or ‘materials’) of a product are designed by intention to fit within a biological or technical materials cycle, designed for disassembly and re-purposing. The biological materials are non-toxic and can be simply composted. Technical materials—polymers, alloys and other man-made materials are designed to be used again with minimal energy and highest quality retention (whereas recycling as commonly understood results in a reduction in quality and feeds back into the process as a crude feedstock). Coined by Braungart and McDonough, the phrase “waste is food” summarises the circular philosophy – though as Braungart himself would say today, “the word waste should not even be in there, there is no such thing, everything should be food.” http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/circular-economy/the-circular-model-an-overview

Compost! Entropy , isn't that, everything decays , is in transition. Haven't you forgot the first law :)

Posted By: jamesingramcreate or use existing technical nutrient that mimic the organic nutrient cycle, so at end of life they convert to an energy feedstock . In simple terms like compost

Technical nutrient is good concept. Because ready-to-use compost is almost as chemical/energetically degraded as it can get - yet it's full of nutrients.

So it's 'technical nutrient' for a process which, as I say, captures and inputs masses of environmental energy to break the chemical bonds, separate the inertly combined/locked compounds out into purer, simpler compounds that are full of new energetic potential to then start recombining in new useful ways.

It's using plants to capture solar energy and pump the compost 'back uphill' into simple CH compounds (cellulose) which are just longing to combine with something.