DON'T PANIC — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population

Summary

In this engaging talk, Hans Rosling demystifies the often panic-inducing topic of population growth, illustrating with data how families around the world have shifted from having many children to having just two. He highlights the significant role of improved child survival rates in this transition, particularly in countries like Bangladesh. Rosling challenges preconceived notions about developing nations and their population growth, emphasizing the strides many have made in health, education, and economic development. He paints a hopeful picture for the future, suggesting that global population growth is slowing and sustainable development is within reach.

Highlights

• Hans Rosling juxtaposes facts against common misconceptions in population dynamics, revealing the real progress made 🌎
• With witty data storytelling, he shows how global fertility rates have dropped, such as in Bangladesh 🇧🇩
• The talk reveals that global child literacy is at 80%, much higher than many assume 🧠
• Rosling uses engaging visuals to demonstrate the 'fill up' effect, explaining future population trends 📊
• Africa is set for major demographic changes, but Rosling remains optimistic about its development potential 🌍

Key Takeaways

• Population growth isn't as scary as it seems—data shows a shift to smaller families globally 📉
• Child survival is the key to stabilizing population growth 🚼
• Bangladesh's progress from large to small families exemplifies significant global changes 🇧🇩
• Awareness of real-world stats is lagging; many have outdated views on global health and literacy 📚
• Future population growth will primarily be in Africa; Asia's growth is slowing 🌍

Overview

Hans Rosling kicks off his talk tackling the intimidating topic of global population growth with his characteristic charm and a sprinkle of humor. He aims to dissolve the fears surrounding 'population explosions' by laying out the facts. Rosling dives into how the world's population has reached 7 billion, but the growth isn't quite what it seems. Instead of a looming crisis, the true story is one of families worldwide, especially in places like Bangladesh, choosing to have fewer children. This marks a significant shift grounded in improved child survival rates and better education.

Aided by his captivating data visualizations, Rosling walks us through the economic and health progress achieved globally, which has enabled this transformation in fertility habits. Surprisingly, areas often pegged as 'developing,' such as Bangladesh, have made monumental strides toward smaller, healthier families. These advancements have led to changes in the world's population growth dynamics, subtly steering us toward an era of stabilization rather than uncontrolled growth. Hans continues to highlight the broader knowledge gaps and misconceptions among populations regarding current global states of health and education.

Rosling's talk leaves us with insights that question our preconceived notions about the developing world, especially Africa, which he identifies as the next major stage for demographic development. Painting a hopeful yet realistic picture, Rosling emphasizes the importance of recognizing true progress. He underlines that we are capable of solving big global challenges, from ending extreme poverty to mitigating climate change impacts, as long as we are guided by data and understanding rather than fear and outdated information.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Introduction to World Changes and Population Growth The chapter discusses the rapid changes occurring globally, focusing on the massive movement of people into new mega cities characterized by towering skyscrapers and expansive slums. It highlights the growing demand for fuel and food amidst the backdrop of unpredictable climate change. The narrative sets the stage for understanding these dynamic transformations and their implications on a global scale.
• 01:30 - 06:30: Population History Explained by Hans Rosling Hans Rosling explores the ongoing population growth and its implications, questioning whether it should be a cause for concern and how to understand the complexities of this phenomenon. With 7 billion people currently inhabiting the Earth, the chapter delves into the beauty and challenges of such a large global population.
• 06:30 - 15:00: Bangladesh's Rapid Fertility Transition In this chapter, the speaker, Hans Rosling, a statistician, sets the stage for discussing the world and its future population dynamics. He addresses the common reactions people have towards such discussions—either panicking about the future or avoiding the topic altogether. Rosling promises to provide a clear and data-driven perspective on how the global population is changing and what current data can tell us about the future. He emphasizes the importance of understanding these trends to face the undeniable challenges ahead.
• 15:00 - 25:00: Global Trends in Family Size and Education The chapter begins by discussing the perception of future challenges but immediately counters with a positive outlook, suggesting that the situation may not be as dire as it seems. It highlights that humanity is already faring better than what some might assume. The narrative transitions into the topic of population growth by referring to babies as blessings, while addressing the concerns held by many about population growth being out of control. The chapter delves into the discourse where some individuals even describe the situation as a population crisis.
• 25:00 - 35:00: Child Survival and Its Impact on Population Growth The chapter begins with a provocative question about the current state of population and the factors leading to this point, setting the stage for a broad exploration of population trends.
• 35:00 - 44:00: Population Projections and Age Demographics The chapter discusses the history of population growth, starting from around 10,000 BC when the world population was approximately 10 million, equivalent to the current population of Sweden. It highlights how the development of farming allowed the population to grow over millennia, leading to the rise of great empires like Egypt and China.
• 44:00 - 52:00: Income Disparities and Poverty Alleviation The chapter discusses the slow growth of the global population up to the year 1800. It highlights a pivotal moment in human history when the world population reached 1 billion, marking a significant milestone as growth had previously been minimal, increasing only by tiny fractions of a percent over thousands of years.
• 52:00 - 66:00: Rural Poverty and Economic Growth The chapter discusses the impact of the Industrial Revolution on population growth. The global population expanded significantly from 2 billion to 7 billion in just over a century. During this period, there were widespread concerns, even among experts, about the Earth's capacity to sustain this rapid population increase.
• 66:00 - 75:00: Global Economic Distribution and Literacy The chapter discusses the dramatic increase in the global population, particularly in Asian countries like Bangladesh. It highlights that more than half of the current world population was added during the speaker's lifetime. Specifically, Bangladesh has seen its population triple, growing from 50 million to over 150 million.
• 75:00 - 83:00: Improvements in Health and Income Distribution Over 200 Years This chapter discusses the changes in health and income distribution over the past 200 years, with a particular focus on densely populated countries. It highlights the situation in Bangladesh, where 15 million people reside in the crowded capital, Dhaka. The narrative explores how inhabitants, both urban and rural, are concerned about family sizes amid these conditions, while introducing the emerging new Bangladesh through the lens of the K family, including mom Tasima, and daughters Tanina and little Sadia.
• 83:00 - 92:30: Future Economic Growth and Environmental Challenges The chapter discusses the personal decision of Hanan to have a smaller family despite coming from a large family background, with a focus on limiting the number of children to two. This decision serves as a reflection of balancing future economic growth with environmental challenges, highlighting the importance of making conscious choices that consider broader societal impacts.
• 92:30 - 97:30: Sustainable Global Development and Climate Change This chapter discusses the cultural shift towards smaller family sizes as part of sustainable global development. It highlights how individuals like Tas and Hanan are contributing to this movement, both personally and professionally. The chapter touches upon the interplay between personal choices and broader societal trends in addressing global challenges like climate change.

DON'T PANIC — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] we live in a world of Relentless change huge migrations of people to new mega cities filling soaring skyscrapers and vast slumps ravenous appetites for fuel and food unpredictable climate change and all this in a world where the
• 00:30 - 01:00 population is still growing should we be worried should we be scared how to make sense of it all 7 billion people now live on this planet of ours isn't it beautiful but when some people think
• 01:00 - 01:30 about the world and its future they Panic others prefer not to think about it at all but tonight I'm going to show you how things really are my name is Hans rosling I'm a statistician that no no no no don't switch off because with the latest data from all country I'm going to show you the world in a new way I'm going to tell you how world population is changing and what today's data tell us about how the future of the world will be we undeniably face huge
• 01:30 - 02:00 challenges but the good news is that the future may not be quite as gloomy and that mankind already is doing better than many of you [Music] think babies each one a blessing but many people think population growth is out of control some even talk of a population
• 02:00 - 02:30 bomb are they right so where are we with population today and how did we get here I'm going to tell you a story about everyone who ever lived well at least during the last some Thousand Years here we go uh I give you two exes this is time in years and this one here is world population in
• 02:30 - 03:00 billions in the year 10,000 BC when the first people were becoming Farmers then the archaeologist estimate that the world population was only 10 million imagine 10 million that's like Sweden today a world of only swedes but then as the Millennia passed by more Farmers food and people and great Empires could emerge Egypt China
• 03:00 - 03:30 India and finally Europe and population continued to grow but very slowly and I stop here at the year 1800 because 1800 that's when world population became 1 billion imagine all that time the population growth was just with a tiny fraction of a percent through thousands of years but here 1800 with the
• 03:30 - 04:00 Industrial Revolution everything changed and population started to grow faster in little more than 100 years it reached 2 billion and then you know when I was at school it was three billion and many people said the planet cannot support more people even experts said that but what happens was this you know we became 4 billion 5 billion 6 billion 7 billion imagine
• 04:00 - 04:30 more than half of the world population have been added during my lifetime and the the number is still Rising most of the population growth in recent years has been in Asian countries like here in Bangladesh where the population has tripled during my lifetime from 50 to more than 150 million it's now one of of the most
• 04:30 - 05:00 densely populated countries in the world some 15 million already live in the very crowded Capital daaka people here whether in the city or the countryside are intensely concerned about the size of families but a new Bangladesh is emerging like the K family mom tasima daughters tanina and little Sadia and
• 05:00 - 05:30 [Music] [Music] Hanan come from large families themselves but they've decided to have just two [Music] children
• 05:30 - 06:00 [Music] Tas and Hanan are part of a cultural shift away from big families and for tasima it's also become a job
• 06:00 - 06:30 she works for the government Family Planning service which employs women like her in every village she goes door to door to try to help others to have smaller families [Music] too
• 06:30 - 07:00 tasa offers advice moral support and most importantly a range of [Music] [Music] contracep
• 07:00 - 07:30 [Music] [Music] so how successful has tasima and Bangladesh been in reducing fertility rate that is number of babies born per woman in Sweden we set up gapminder Foundation to make the world's data
• 07:30 - 08:00 available in a way that everyone can understand so I can show you the situation in Bangladesh and what has happened here a horizontal axis babies per woman all the way from 1 to 2 to 7 to8 and here a vertical axis that is lifespan life expectancy how many years a newborn can expect to live from 30 all the way up to 90 now we start in 19 72 a
• 08:00 - 08:30 very important year for Bangladesh the First full year of Independence that year Bangladesh was over there and they had on average seven babies per woman and lifespan was less than 50 years so what has happened after Independence have life become longer in Bangladesh have children become fewer here is the data I start Bangladesh indeed you know life is getting longer and babies fewer six five and even longer four three and
• 08:30 - 09:00 they land now almost to two it's 2.2 and the lifespan is 70 it's absolutely amazing in 40 years Bangladesh have gone from 7 six 5 4 3 2 it's a miracle that has happened in Bangladesh but is it only in Bangladesh well I'll show you the whole world I will go back 50 years in time to
• 09:00 - 09:30 1963 here are all the countries and these green ones is America North and South the yellow ones is Europe east and west and blue is Africa north and south of the Sahara and red is Asia and we include Australia and New Zealand the size of the bubble show the size of the population look the big ones over there is China and India and Bangladesh is yes
• 09:30 - 10:00 behind in 1963 the average number of babies born per woman in the world was five but it was a divided world can you see that these countries over here the developed countries they had small families and long lives and then there were the developing countries over here and they had large families and short lives and very few were in between but now we'll see what has
• 10:00 - 10:30 happened I start the world here we go and you can see that China is getting the Big B is getting to Better Health and then they start Family Planning they move along to smaller families and the Big Green look at Mexico Mexico is coming there and this is Brazil also the green and Latin America and here India is following India is following the big red bubbles are Asian countries going this way many Africans are still with many babies born per woman and then Bangladesh over there overtakes India on its way to to the small family and now
• 10:30 - 11:00 almost all go up to this even Africa now start to move ooh that was the earthquake in hati and now everyone ends up there what a change we have today you know in the world the average is 2.5 imagine you know it used to be 50 years ago five and the world has Chang the average number of babies born per woman have gone from 5 to 2.5 and it's
• 11:00 - 11:30 still decreasing what a big change people would think that Bangladesh and countries like that is some sort of epicenter of a population bomb they couldn't be more wrong to me health workers like Mrs tasima and their colleagues who have taken their countries from this side all over in a few decades to much better health and small families they are the heroes of our time
• 11:30 - 12:00 it's an amazing change that has happened we no longer live in a divided world but how much do people know about this amazing change at Gap minding we not only show data we also measure how much people know or don't know about the world so we did a first survey in Sweden the results were depressive so we did our second survey in Britain and we had High Hopes because
• 12:00 - 12:30 the British have been all over the place you know so we thought we would get good results here the first question we asked was how many babies do women have on average in Bangladesh and we gave four Alternatives 2.5 3.5 4.5 or 5.5 this is the result of the British [Music] survey but you know the right answer
• 12:30 - 13:00 it's 2.5 only 12% of the British got it right so we thought that perhaps it was those with low education who dragged down the result so we segmented those who had been to the Fine British universities and had a University degree and here they are this is the result if anything works
• 13:00 - 13:30 so now you may conclude that the British lack knowledge about the world uhuh uhuh what if I would have asked this CH and his friends I would have written the different answers on bananas and let them pick one banana each you know this result I would get course shims know nothing about ban but by pure random they will pick
• 13:30 - 14:00 twice as many correct answer as the British and of the British you know more than half of the British people think it's 4.5 or more the problem here is not lack of knowledge it's preconceived ideas the British cannot even imagine cannot even guess that women in Bangladesh have 2.5 and you know it's really 2.2 already this is what the britone know that tasa
• 14:00 - 14:30 and her family are the norm in Bangladesh today the most common family size and it's not only there it's all over the world in Brazil two child families Vietnam two child families and even in India the most common family size is two children today and also if you go to the African continent you go to the big cities here Adis Ababa you have less than two children per woman today in AB there can
• 14:30 - 15:00 be Muslim Buddhist Hindu Christian there's not one religion not one culture not one continent where two child families cannot happen this change from big families down to two child families is one of the most important things that have happened in the world during my lifetime it's unprecedented in human history oh here we are back in
• 15:00 - 15:30 Bangladesh let's find the reasons behind this historic and continuing shift from large to small families almost all girls in Muslim Bangladesh like 15-year-old tanina go to school today the government now even pays families money to keep their daughters on at secondary Lev at tangina school boys are now outnumbered by
• 15:30 - 16:00 [Applause] girls you could hardly miss the point of this [Applause] lesson education is effective and there are also new opportunities for Bangladeshi women despite continuing inequalities there are more jobs and
• 16:00 - 16:30 tanina is Aiming High more and more young women here are seeing how different things could be for them
• 16:30 - 17:00 [Music] foreign speech foree fore
• 17:00 - 17:30 it's wonderful to see tasa so full of Hope for a bright future for her two daughters but one essential transformation underpins the change in Bangladesh it's a dramatic Improvement in child [Music] survival it's Ramadan the Muslim month of fasting and reflection at this auspicious time Hanan
• 17:30 - 18:00 is helping his parents to tend the family graveyard three of hanan's siblings died when they were very young they are buried here
• 18:00 - 18:30 back when hanan's parents were a young couple one in five children in Bangladesh died before they reached 5 years of age All Families lived with a constant fear of losing one or more children
• 18:30 - 19:00 in the last few decades Bangladesh has made great progress in basic health particularly in child survival vaccines treatment of infections and better nutrition and hygiene have all saved the lives of millions of children and as parents have come to see that all of their children are now likely to survive the biggest obstacle to Family Planning has at last
• 19:00 - 19:30 gone even in the slums of Daka women now have on average just two children child survival drives everything let's go back into history why did the world population grow so slowly before 1800 well throughout history all historical records show us was that on average two
• 19:30 - 20:00 parents got more or less six children but that looks as a very fast population growth so why didn't it grow because one two three four of the children died before growing up to become parents themselves people in the past never lived in ecological balance with nature they died in ecological balance with nature it was utterly tragic
• 20:00 - 20:30 but with the Industrial Revolution this changed better wages more food tapped water better sanitation soap medical advances you know so why did then from all these advances why did population grow was it because they got more children no 1963 that year when I was at school actually the number of children per woman had decreased a little in the world to five and the reason for the fast population growth was the improved child
• 20:30 - 21:00 survival four survived at that time but still one out of five died that was still terrible so it's only in the recent decades that most of the countries have taken big leap forwards in child survival and in Family Planning so that we are now approaching the new balance and it's a nice balance two parents on average get two children that survive V we have families in a very happy balance
• 21:00 - 21:30 this is the most normal family situation in the world today and what does this mean for the future here I will show you the projection the best projection into the future from the the finest demographers we have at the population division of the United Nations and it looks like this it's going to continue first up to eight and then it goes up to nine and then it goes here but see it's slowing down it's slowing down by the end of the
• 21:30 - 22:00 century it's becoming more flat there and if I do a closeup on this you can see that we are expecting a slowing down and the end of fast population growth but of course this is a projection that has a certain degree of uncertainty but we are sure that we are at the end of fast population growth within this Century it all due to a remarkable effect of the falling fertility rate
• 22:00 - 22:30 look here if we go back into this I'll show this by showing you the number of children in the world the number of children from0 to 15 years of age here they come look uh the number of children there increased slowly and then also it increased rapidly so by the turn of the century here there were two billion children in the world and to me that was an important year because that was when duris were born that's that's my first grandchild and and she was born at a
• 22:30 - 23:00 very special time for children in the world you know because the Specialists the demographers estimate that from this year the number of children in the world will continue like this it will not increase any longer by the end of the century we will still have two billion children in the world when Doris was born is when the world entered into the age of Peak child the number of children are not
• 23:00 - 23:30 increasing now this will confuse you because how can then the total population grow like this if the children doesn't increase where would all these adults come from and and to explain that I have to leave this fancy digital stuff and show you real powerful educational material we have developed and it's here I will show you the world population ladies and gentlemen in the
• 23:30 - 24:00 form of foam blocks one block is 1 billion one block is 1 billion and that means that we have two billion children in the world then we have 2 billion between 15 and 30 years of age these are rounded numbers we have 1 billion 30 to 45 we have 1 billion 45 to 60 and then then we have my block 60
• 24:00 - 24:30 years and older we are here on Top This is the world population today and you can see that there are three billions missing like here only few of them are missing because they have died most of them are missing because they were never born because back then you know before 1980 there were much fewer children born in the world because there were fewer women giving birth to children so this is what we have today now what will happen in in the future do you know what
• 24:30 - 25:00 happens to old people like me they die yes there was someone here who works in hospitals yeah so they die the rest they grow 15 years older and have two billion children these ones are now old time to die and then these ones grow 15 years older and they have two billion children this one die and the rest grow 15 years older and have two billion children and
• 25:00 - 25:30 without increasing the number of children with also increasing the length of life we have three billion people more by this big inevitable fill up of adults which will happen just when the large young Generations grow up now there's one more detail which is good news for the older ones here like me that it's estimated that the old people will live a little longer so so we have to add one billion more for the old here on the top and I'm desperately hoping
• 25:30 - 26:00 that I will be part of that group because then I can live long and read the annual statistic as they come reporting every year you but when I talk to many fine environmental activists which are really have a good concern about the environment they very often tell me we have to stop population growth at 8 billion but when I then talk with them they first they don't know that we have reach Peak child and then they are completely un aware that most of the
• 26:00 - 26:30 remaining population growth is an inevitable fill up of adults so we will end up with more or less this amount of people so we know how many billions there will be but what about where they live now and in the future there you have the world and here are the 7 billion now out of the 7 million one
• 26:30 - 27:00 live in the America North and South together one in Europe one in Africa and four in Asia so this is now but how to remember this I have a very simple way of remembering this I put up the numbers like this and then I say this is the PIN code of the world 114 now what will happen up to midcentury that we know fairly well Europe no increase in fact the European
• 27:00 - 27:30 population is decreasing in America a little more people mainly retired people in Latin America so it makes no difference it's more almost the same in Asia we will have 1 billion more and then the population growth in Asia is over in Africa in the next 40 years the population will double to 2 billion now to the end of the century well we know quite well no more people in Europe no more in America no more in Asia but Africa is set as we
• 27:30 - 28:00 have data today for another doubling so there will be 4 billions in Africa the 2,100 and probably the final pin code will be1 145 so in 2100 there will be quite a different world the people who live in what I call the old west in West Europe and North America will by then be less than 10% of the world population 80% of
• 28:00 - 28:30 the world population will be living in Asia and Africa but will there be resources enough to sustain them well this will be a huge Challenge and nothing will come automatically but my take is that it is possible for all these billions to live well [Music] together certainly it's easy to see the potential
• 28:30 - 29:00 for a prosperous and peaceful Asia with 5 billion people Japan South Korea and others are already rich following them on the road to wealth are larger and larger parts of China India Indonesia and many other Asian countries even in poor Asian countries more and more are getting a decent life but what a about a future Africa of
• 29:00 - 29:30 as much as 4 billion won't most of them be living in terrible poverty I have seen extreme poverty in Africa 30 years ago I spent the two most intense years of my life working as medical doctor in one of the poorest countries mosambik on the east coast of Africa mosambik had just become independent after a long war against the
• 29:30 - 30:00 colonial power Portugal and my job was to be one of two doctors we were both Foreigners for 300,000 people and this was the hospital my wife was also there working as a midwife this is the entire staff of the hospital those with white Coast had the chance during the colonial period to get a professional training of at least one year the others many of them couldn't
• 30:00 - 30:30 even read and write but they all worked with such dedication and motivations but the patients came with the worst diseases of extreme poverty and our resources were often not enough and especially my skills as a young doctor did not meet the need of the patients Mambi is still today a very poor country but things have improved immensely since I was there 30 years
• 30:30 - 31:00 ago for a start there's now a brand new hospital in the town where I worked 30 years ago the new much bigger hospital has 15 doctors and 11 of them are mozambicans all the staff are now well trained the director of the hospital is Dr Kimo the
• 31:00 - 31:30 obstetrician the transformation here is amazing to me they routinely save women in child birth with cesarians something that was impossible when I was
• 31:30 - 32:00 [Music] there everything has improved so much those born in mozambik today should have a much brighter future
• 32:00 - 32:30 not just because of Better Health but a booming economy too with busy ports and markets and new Industries with lots of new jobs I know you might be thinking that this good news is just about cities and towns and it's true the worst challenge is in the rural areas where most people live but things are changing here
• 32:30 - 33:00 too deep in rural Northern mozic lies the District of mooas this is home for Olivia Andre and their young family like so many other poor people in the world Olivia and Andrea are farmers reliant on what they grow for what they eat
• 33:00 - 33:30 it's 4 a.m. and the day task beckon Andrea heads straight to the fields Olivia first goes to fetch water both have to walk miles to get anywhere
• 33:30 - 34:00 with no other means of Transport everything has to be carried Olivia and Andrea have eight children fertility rates are still high in much of rural Africa and it's the poorest families who have the most mouths to feed anything this family can spare
• 34:00 - 34:30 they yet economic growth is slowly trickling into the countryside now Andre has set his sides on one thing
• 34:30 - 35:00 he believes will change everything bicycles can make a huge difference to the lives of the rural poor they Save hours every day and get so much more done with a bicycle they can carry much heavier loads to the market and earn more money they can travel to find work and if they get sick
• 35:00 - 35:30 they can reach a health clinic in time Andre and Olivia have been putting money away for two years they haven't quite enough yet everything now depends on the sesame seeds which they are just harvesting if they can get a good price
• 35:30 - 36:00 they might just make [Music] it Andrea and Olivia live in one of the poorest countries and they live in the rural area which is the poorest part of that country so how many how many people are there in the world living like they and how many are there that are poor I'm going to show you this JW stick very simple poor and Rich and here I have have all the seven billions again they
• 36:00 - 36:30 are in a very simplified way lined up there from the poorest to the richest now how much does the richest billion earn here in a dollar per day well let's look here o it's coming up it's coming up I can't even reach $100 a day then let's look at the middle billion who is exactly in the middle how much do they earn it will come yes yes yes
• 36:30 - 37:00 10 and then I go over here to the poorest billion how much do they get well just one this is the difference of the world today and The Economist they draw a line which they call the line for extreme poverty a little above $1 that's when you hardly can have enough food to feed the family you cannot be sure that you have food all days you know and and one billion is clearly below that still and
• 37:00 - 37:30 the second billion is sort of divided by that line and and then the others are above it now the poorest people they can hardly afford to buy shoes and when they get shoes the next thing they will save for is bicycle this is where andrean Olivia is and after bicycle you will go for the motorbike and then after the motorbike it's the car and I remember when my family got the first car it was a small gray Volkswagen the first thing we did was to
• 37:30 - 38:00 go to Norway on holiday because Norway is so much more beautiful than Sweden it was a fantastic trip and and now I'm I'm in this group I can go like the richest billion we can go on holiday by airplanes of course there are people who are much richer than the airplane people some are so rich so they even contemplating that they should go as tourists out into space and the difference in income from the airplane people to the very richest over there is almost as big as it is
• 38:00 - 38:30 from the airplane people here you know all the way down to the poorest in that side now the most important to remember from this J stick is this and I need to show you this I need my step ladder sometimes you need some old well functioning technology also here [Music] I can only reach up here they are now
• 38:30 - 39:00 I'm at the top the problem for us living on $100 a day is that when we look down on those who have $10 or $1 they look equally poor we can't see the difference it look as if everyone is living on the same amount of money and they say oh they are all poor no I can assure you because I've met and talked with people who live down here and I can
• 39:00 - 39:30 assure you that the people down here they know very well how much better life would be if they would move from $1 to $10 10 times as much income this is a huge difference you know and and to understand this this is what Olivia and Andre is trying to do now each little step they take along this line here you know from the shoes towards the bicycle
• 39:30 - 40:00 small as it may seems from Far distant make a huge difference in their life and if Andre and Olivia would get that bicycle it would speed them along to better life and better wealth up in this end today Andre and Olivia are preparing to sell the Sesame crop they've been growing for many months
• 40:00 - 40:30 but Andrea and Olivia will have to be careful if they are to get paid the proper price
• 40:30 - 41:00 [Music] Andre is going to do the selling and for the last time he hopes he has to get help to transport the crop to Market Andrea now needs to keep his wits about him the deal is done and Andre is happy with
• 41:00 - 41:30 the price he's [Music] got it's the moment the family have worked so hard for
• 41:30 - 42:00 Andre's journey to Market took all morning to walk now in less than an hour he can ride home [Applause]
• 42:00 - 42:30 the bicycle is put to use at once the children fetch water with it Andrea carries more crops to the market and just as importantly Olivia and Andrea can now easily reach their lessons for adults so they can learn better maths and how to read and write
• 42:30 - 43:00 it's so great to see Olivia and Andrea pedling their way out of extreme poverty and they use the bicycle to go to literacy classes education is so important for the progress of people and Nations but how many know what has really happened with education in the
• 43:00 - 43:30 world time for the Great British ignorance survey again here we go we asked what percent of adults in the world today are literate can read and write can I ask the audience how many guest 20% hands up 40% 60% and 80% ah yeah this is the result of the British
• 43:30 - 44:00 [Applause] sample Now by now you can use the result of the British survey to find out what the right right answer is isn't it of course it's 80% that is the right answer at least you were clearly better than the British average just 80% of the population in the world can read and write today literacy is 80% actually the L figure is a little higher so if I would have compared that
• 44:00 - 44:30 with the shimps again you know so it's once more you only get random results from the shims but you get three times as many correct answers than you get from the British and now the university people perhaps they know this oh even worse what on Earth are they teaching at British universities the common view about the world is outdated with several decades the media have missed to communicate it
• 44:30 - 45:00 but perhaps this is because the world is changing so fast ladies and gentlemen I'm going to give you my alltime favorite graph I'm going to show you the history of 200 countries during 200 years in less than one minute I have an access for income I have an access for lifespan I start in H 1800 and there are all the countries and
• 45:00 - 45:30 back in 1800 everyone was down in the poor and sick Corner can you see low lifespan little money and here comes the effect of the Industrial Revolution of course the countries in West Europe they are coming to better wealth but they're not getting much healthier in the beginning and those under Colonial domination doesn't benefit anything in there they remain there in the sick and poor corner and now health is improving health is slowly improving here it's getting up here and we are coming into the new century and the terrible first world war and then the economic
• 45:30 - 46:00 recession after that and then the second world war and now independence and with Independence health is improving faster than it ever did in other countries Here and Now starts the fast economic catch up of China and other Latin American countries they come on here you know and India is following there and the African countries is also following it's an amazing change that had happened in the world you know in the front here we have now us and UK but they're not moving so
• 46:00 - 46:30 fast any longer the fast movers are here in the middle China is moving very fast to catch up and Bangladesh look Bangladesh is already here now quite healthy and now starting with fast economic growth and Mambi yes Mambi is back there but they are now moving fast in the right direction but all this I show you is country averages what about people have people also got a better life I'm
• 46:30 - 47:00 now going to show you something which makes me very excited as a St detic I'm going to show you income distribution the difference between people uh and to do that I take the bubbles back 50 years and then we are going to look only at money and to do that we have to expand and adjust the axis because the riches is so rich and the poorest is so poor so this will be bigger difference than between the countries and what we do now is that we let the country fall down here this is United States and spread to
• 47:00 - 47:30 show the range within the country and I take down all the countries in the Americas and now you can see from the richest person to the poorest person and the height here shows you how many there are on each income level and now let's take down Europe and on top of that I'm going to put Africa and finally the region with most people on top of everything Asia now in
• 47:30 - 48:00 1963 the world was constituted by two humps first the richest hump is like a camel isn't it the first hump here with the richest is mainly Europe and the Americas and the poorest hump over here is mainly Asia and Africa and the poverty line was there can you see how many people there were in extreme poverty 50 years ago and most of them were in Asia and people were saying Asia
• 48:00 - 48:30 will never get out of poverty exactly some people are still saying about Africa today now what has happened I start the world and you can see that many people are born into poverty here but Asia goes towards higher income and one billion goes out of extreme poverty this way and the whole shape of the world changed and the camel is dead it's reborn as a drader and what you can see here you know is
• 48:30 - 49:00 the variation from the richest that it's most people in the middle and there's a much smaller proportion of the world now in extreme poverty but be careful it's still a lot of people more than one billion people in extreme poverty now the question is can this move out of extreme poverty now continue for those in Africa and even for the new billions in Africa
• 49:00 - 49:30 I think it's possible even probable that most countries in Africa will rise out of poverty too it will need wise action and huge investment but it can happen the many countries of Africa are not all advancing at the same Pace a few are moving very fast others are stuck in Conflict but most like mozambik are are now making steady
• 49:30 - 50:00 progress and what about feeding all the new African people in the future yes there are shortages today but there is also much potential here agricultural yields in Africa are just a fraction of what they could be with better technology and Africa's rivers are barely tapped for irri ation one day Africa could hum with combine Harvesters
• 50:00 - 50:30 and tractors and grow food for many more billions and please don't imagine it just me who thinks Africa can make it the United Nations is about to set itself a new official goal eliminating extreme poverty within 20 years everyone understand it's a huge challenge but I seriously believe it's possible imagine if that would happen now what we
• 50:30 - 51:00 have seen so far is that the rich end it moves and the middle it moves but this poorest end is stuck it's here in extreme poverty we find almost all the illiteracy here we find high child mortality and still many babies born per woman it's like extreme poverty reproduces itself if you you don't end it swiftly but Andre and
• 51:00 - 51:30 Olivia and people like them they work so hard to get away from it and if they only can get the right help from their government and from The World At Large with things like school health vaccines roads electricity contraceptives then they will manage but they will mainly manage by their own hard work here we go you know go on follow Andrea and Olivia across the line
• 51:30 - 52:00 you know it is possible within some decades yes but getting out of poverty is just the beginning people want to continue along this line to a good life but what does a good life mean for most people in the world the good life they are striving for will mean more machines and much more use of energy so there's a problem because all
• 52:00 - 52:30 this adds to one of the great threats for the future severe climate change 80% of the energy the world uses is still fossil fuels and the science shows that the climate may change dramatically in the future because of the carbon dioxide emission from continuing to burn all these fossil fuels I'm not the best person to tell you how bad climate change will be nor
• 52:30 - 53:00 am I a specialist on how to prevent it what I can do is to show you data to make you understand who is the one that emits the carbon dioxide I will show this you remember the yard stick from the poorest billion to the richest billion from the one who hardly can afford shoes to the one who fly with airplanes now this CHS the total amount of fossil fuel used
• 53:00 - 53:30 in the world during one year coal oil and natural gas and it represent more or less the total emission of carbon dioxide now how much of that is used by the richest billion half of it now the second richest billion half of what's left then you understand what the third use half of what left and the other use hardly anything this is rounded numbers but it clearly shows you know
• 53:30 - 54:00 that almost all the fossil fuel is used here by the one two three richest billions more than 85% they used now the richest billion here at least have stopped increasing but we are yet to see whether they will decrease and in the coming decades it's the economic growth of these two that will increase the fossil fuel use and the Cor carbon dioxide emission even if these ones over here come out of extreme poverty and get
• 54:00 - 54:30 richer all the way to the motorbike that doesn't contribute much to the emission of carbon dioxide and regarding population growth most of the additional billions in the next 40 years will be in this group here but still if you ask people in the richest end they seem to get everything wrong they look down on the world from their very high emission and then they say oh those over there you cannot live like us you will destroy the
• 54:30 - 55:00 planet you see I find the argument from the people here catching up to be much more correct and logic they say huh who are you to tell us that we can't live like you you better change first if you want us to do it differently there are many Essentials to having a good life that billions in the world do not yet have Andrea's Village and house and so many like them don't
• 55:00 - 55:30 even have electricity Mambi has huge coal reserves and if it and the other poorest countries build affordable new power stations burning coal for electricity in the industry I don't think anyone who emits more carbon should interfere now what I'm going to do is ask you two questions that I often ask my Swedish students the first one is this how many of you have not traveled
• 55:30 - 56:00 by an airplane this year uhhuh quite a few can do without flying so the next question is how many of you have stayed away from washing machines and you have hand washed all bed sheets clothes and laundry during the last year I thought so no one everyone who can afford use washing machine even the hardcore in the environmental movement and I still remember the day when my
• 56:00 - 56:30 family got the washing machine it was the 1st of November 1952 grandma was invited to be the first to load the machine she had hand was her entire life for a family of nine and when she loaded the machine she sat down on a foot stool and she watched the entire program during one hour she was absolutely mesmerized for my mother it also meant a lot of
• 56:30 - 57:00 more free time to do other things she could read books for me I think that's what made me Professor no wonder we said Thank You steel meal thank you washing powder Factory thank you electrical power station now when thinking about where all this leave us I have just one little humble advice to you beside everything else look at the
• 57:00 - 57:30 data look at the facts about the world and you will see where we are today and how we can move forwards with all these billions on our wonderful Planet the challenge of extreme poverty have been greatly reduced and it's for the first time in history within our power to end it for good the challenge of population growth is in fact already being solved the number of children have stopped
• 57:30 - 58:00 growing and for the challenge of climate change we can still avoid the worst but that requires that the richest as soon as possible find a way to set their use of resources and energy at a level that step by step can be shared by 10 billions or 11 billions by the end of the Century I've never called myself an
• 58:00 - 58:30 optimist but I do say I'm a possibilist and I also say the world is much better than many of you think thank you very [Applause] [Music] much [Music]