Hope for the future

Hans Rosling's 2006 and 2007 20 minute videos describe (with amazing graphics) how there will soon be NO ‘third world.’ I highly recommend them.

Improved health and wealth are taking over the planet and we hardly noticed. Rosling's presentaions are to me the most interesting analysis of the world’s population since the idiot Paul Erlick wrote “The Population Bomb”. Erlick, whose book I read while I was in high school in the 70’s, predicted that all was lost. We’ll soon run out of food, and we’ll all die - if we don’t force people to stop reproducing. That sort of short sightedness has always affected my politics. The correct answer to Erlick’s 'dilemma' was of course staring him in the face: free market economies and the green revolution would totally transform the planet. Though Rosling is from socialist Sweden you’ll see he can’t help but come to the same conclusion.

You can run Rosling’s software at http://www.gapminder.org/ but check out his talks first.