The Global Village

I gave my freshmen a quiz this morning based on a book called "If the World Were a Global Village".  It was published in 2003 so is a little bit dated, but the figures are still good enough to give one an idea about the composition of humans on the planet.

The premise is that over six billion humans is a lot of math, so presume that the earth has only 100 people in a village, but the math proportions stay the same.  It's so easy to do percentages when it's out of 100.  The predominant religion is Christianity at 32% with Islam composing 19%, Judaism 1% and no religion = 15%.  A lot of Hinduism and Confucianism, et al, aside from that.  Chinese is spoken by 22 people in the village, whereas only 9 speak English.  Only 24 people in the village always have enough to eat, and only 76 have electricity.  There are 42 radios and 14 telephones in the village. 

A lot of people are not texting all day everyday but they are not on my campus.

Forty percent of the villagers do not have adequate sanitation.  Not everyone has clean air to breathe, and if the population growth rate remains constant, in 2200 there will be 1600 people in the village.  There will be shortages of natural resources, shelter, and food. 

One of my students said, "Thank God we won't be there to see it."

I want to be alive 187 years from now, only I think we will have a new way of numbering time, probably covered in the new scrolls.

Today I am more than thankful that I live in the 60% of people who have a toilet that flushes whenever necessary.  Sanitation is a beautiful thing.  I am even more thankful that I know the truth, that death is not natural, and if I am not alive in 187 years, I hope you are looking for me in the resurrection before long.