Charisma and upbeat messages about global trends made the late Hans Rosling (1948–2017), professor at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, an international TEDTalk-star, listed among TIME Magazine ´s “The World´s 100 Most Influential People” already in 2012.
Rosling concludes that in order to stop the exponentially increasing population growth they need to be provided with education. Rosling shows a population growth graph from the 1960s to 2008. We see in 1960 that there is a 60-70% chance that a child will survive and a mother will also have 6-8 children in a developing country.
Hans starts of talking about how astounded he was when his teacher in school told him that the world population had become three billion people; back in 1960. Rosling explains that instead of using digital technology; he is going to use IKEA boxes to represent one billion people.
There was a big gap between the one billion in the industrialized world and the two billion in the developing world. In the industrialized world, people were healthy, educated, rich, and they had small families. And their aspiration was to buy a car. And in 1960, all Swedes were saving to try to buy a Volvo like this.
That's why investments by Gates Foundation, UNICEF and aid organizations, together with national government in the poorest countries, are so good; because they are actually helping us to reach a sustainable population size of the world. We can stop at nine billion if we do the right things.
But if, and only if, [the poorest] get out of poverty, they get education, they get improved child survival, they can buy a bicycle and a cell phone and come [to live] here, then population growth will stop in 2050.
And down here, child survival, the percentage of children surviving childhood up to starting school: 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent, 90, and almost 100 percent, as we have today in the wealthiest and healthiest countries.
During his many lectures Hans Rosling observed that the audience had a view of the world that dated back to the 1960s: a small group of rich countries in Western Europe and North America were set in stark contrast to the overwhelming majority of poor developing countries throughout the rest of the world.
Charisma and upbeat messages about global trends made the late Hans Rosling (1948–2017), professor at Karolinska Institute in Sweden, an international TEDTalk-star, listed among TIME Magazine ´s “The World´s 100 Most Influential People” already in 2012. The posthumous book, Factfulness written with his son and daughter-in-law is now becoming a global bestseller. Bill Gates promises to hand it out to all US university graduates. Nature is full of praise: “This magnificent book ends with a plea for a factual world view. …Like his famous presentations, it throws down a gauntlet to doom-and-gloomers in global health by challenging preconceptions and misconceptions.” In Sweden, The Nobel Prize Foundation has teamed up with the Rosling family, announcing that it will “light up Stockholm every spring, in connection with the arrival of the light, with a new public education day in memory of Hans Rosling.” 1
According to the latest UN forecast, Nigeria’s population will increase from 191 million in 2017 to 794 million to 2100, Tanzania from today´s 57 million to 304 million in 2100, and the Democratic Republic of Congo from 81 million to 339 million.
Today’s approximately seven billion people will probably grow to between ten and thirteen billion by 2100. According to Factfulness, there is no reason for worry: population will stabilize at the end of the century, and the key reason for this is that the current number of children is no longer increasing.
One billion people are “rich” and live at Level 4. In 2016, the World Bank officially accepted this grouping, after 14 years of Rosling’s lectures. The United Nations, however, still adheres to the dichotomy of developed and developing countries. The claim of Factfulness, however, is not just to present some good news: “This is a book about ...
Yet the existence of variation in social variables is well known in social science, and it does not prevent the existence of socioeconomic gaps between countries. There is, for example, a significant gap between the average income in the United States ($67/day) and Mexico ($11/day).
There is a graph showing the decrease in hunger around the world but no graph on the spread of obesity , though the book in passim notes that this is one of the largest health problems in the world (moreover, in September 2018 the UN World Food Program reported an increase in the number of hungry people in recent years).