Wondering what will happen to the world in 2050? Concerned about the widening gap between the world's richest and poorest countries? Or are you simply a fan of animated charts with lots of cool graphs and circles moving around? In any case, Gapminder is a site that you should know about. It's the project of Hans Rosling, a Swedish economist (?)/ professor / development specialist / information guru, and it does a great job of describing what's happening to the world in terms of population, health, and development, among other things. Consider the following:
I played this to my media class this spring because A) it's easy to understand, and B) it's one of the few projections of the world twenty years from now that's both intelligent and optimistic. And he uses Legos! What's not to like?
Oh, and here's the history of the last 200 years of world development and population growth, all explained quite clearly (and in a great Swedish accent) in under five minutes. Thank you, Hans!
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Nice comment above. Someone following your blog who uses traditional characters and expect you to know it! :)
ReplyDeleteConcerning your post. I've seen Rosling's presentation on TED.com - phenomenal! This was a great video clip of a visionary who actually sees a positive future for the world. Let's hope his gentle / gentile influence has a long lasting impact. I agree with him that we need greater global governance than the current UN provides.
Greg