As we sit in the comfort of our homes enjoying the luxuries that we so often take for granted, the world continues to turn and with every passing minute, somewhere, something significant is happening. Tempus fugit! The population rises, species become extinct, we produce more and more stuff and spam relentlessly assaults our in-bins!
According to what you are about to see, in one minute, these things happened on our planet:
- 269 births
- 113 deaths
- 508 people contracted malaria
- 25 hectares of forest were lost
- 50, 201 litres of wine were produced
- 1,372 metric tons of milk was produced
- 2,765 first kisses!
I first saw this World Clock about 3 years ago and immediately found it to be very instructive. While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the statistics, the authors provide a link to the sources of the data so you can check it out for yourselves. I suspect that the ratios are fairly close to reality, close enough to provoke some serious thinking.
By default, the World Clock cycles through the categories on the left hand side. If you click on a category, it will stop cycling.
It’s a fairly simple interface. Click on the now button and watch the numbers for a minute then click pause. Click on any category on the left hand side and then click on Yr., Mth., Wk., Day.
NOTES:
You need to have a current version of Flash Player for the World Clock to work. Most browsers already support this.
Some of the links will take you directly to Poodwaddle where you can drill down even further.
When I think about this data as a snap shot of what’s going on in our world, it makes me wonder about a great many things. For instance, look how fast the malaria, respiratory infections and childhood diseases rise compared to the rest of the stats. We think of war as a great taker of lives, but look how the numbers pale in comparison to so many other causes of death, like suicide.
Where should we apply our resources? Where should our focus be? Perhaps this type of clock is something all of our leaders should look at more often than not. I have no doubt that it would give them much food for thought …
Photo Credit
Clock Thumbnail – Microsoft Office Clipart Collection
World Clock courtesy – Poodwaddle.com
A version of this post was first published at synaptici
Tempes Fugit.
Brilliant piece of imaginative social media digital engineering.
Even if the figures aren’t accurate, it has served its purpose…. to make us think.
Thanks for sharing it.
Cheers,
Vince
Vincent my Southern bro!
Pleasure! Glad it caused your synapses to fire 😉
You’ll be glad to know I am enjoying some Australian Shiraz as I type this!
Cheers,
Gileeeeeee