Maps that show us who we are (not just where we are) | Danny Dorling | TEDxExeter
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0:13 - 0:16I'd like you to imagine the world anew.
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0:17 - 0:20I'd like to share some ideas with you,
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0:20 - 0:23that I first shared with my friend
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0:23 - 0:26Carl Lee, and which we've got
for many other people -
0:26 - 0:28about how you can look at the world
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0:29 - 0:30in very different ways.
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0:31 - 0:33I'd like to show you some maps,
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0:33 - 0:36which have been drawn by Ben Hennig,
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0:36 - 0:38of the planet in a way
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0:38 - 0:43that most of you will never
have seen the planet depicted before. -
0:44 - 0:48I want to talk about
how everything is connected -
0:49 - 0:50to everything else.
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0:51 - 0:53The phrase is normally attributed
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0:53 - 0:54to Lenin,
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0:55 - 0:58but it was used recently
by my friend George Monbiot, -
0:59 - 1:01when he was trying to explain
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1:01 - 1:04the importance of whale poo
in the oceans. -
1:04 - 1:06If we kill the whales,
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1:06 - 1:08we don't get the whale poo
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1:08 - 1:10if the oceans don't get the whale poo
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1:10 - 1:12things go badly wrong.
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1:13 - 1:16Here's an image
that you're very familiar with. -
1:17 - 1:21I'm old enough that I was actually born
before we saw this image. -
1:21 - 1:24Apparently some of my first words
were "moona, moona," -
1:24 - 1:27but I think that's my mom
having a particular fantasy -
1:27 - 1:29about what her baby boy could see
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1:29 - 1:32on the flickering
black and white TV screen. -
1:32 - 1:34It's only been a few centuries
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1:34 - 1:37since we've actually, most of us,
thought of our planet as spherical. -
1:39 - 1:42When we first saw
these images in the 1960s, -
1:42 - 1:45the world was changing
at an incredible rate. -
1:47 - 1:50In my own little discipline
of human geography, -
1:51 - 1:54a cartographer called Waldo Tobler
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1:54 - 1:57was drawing new maps of the planet,
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1:57 - 1:58and these maps have now spread,
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1:58 - 2:00and I'm going to show you one of them now.
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2:01 - 2:03This map is a map of the world,
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2:04 - 2:07but it's a map which looks to you
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2:07 - 2:08a little bit strange.
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2:09 - 2:12It's a map in which we stretched places,
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2:12 - 2:17so that those areas which contain
many people are drawn larger, -
2:17 - 2:20and those areas,
like the Sahara and the Himalayas, -
2:20 - 2:23in which there are few people,
have been shrunk away. -
2:23 - 2:27Everybody on the planet
is given an equal amount of space. -
2:28 - 2:30The cities are shown shining bright.
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2:31 - 2:35The lines are showing you
submarine cables and trade routes. -
2:35 - 2:38And there's one particular line
that goes from the Chinese port of Dalian -
2:38 - 2:40through past Singapore,
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2:40 - 2:42through the Suez Canal,
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2:42 - 2:44through the Mediterranean
and round to Rotterdam. -
2:44 - 2:46And it's showing you the route
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2:46 - 2:50of what was the world's
largest ship just a year ago, -
2:50 - 2:56a ship which was taking
so many containers of goods -
2:56 - 2:58that when they were unloaded,
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2:58 - 3:02if the lorries had all gone in convoy,
they would have been 100 kilometers long. -
3:03 - 3:06This is how our world is now connected.
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3:06 - 3:12This is the quantity of stuff
we are now moving around the world, -
3:12 - 3:15just on one ship, on one voyage,
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3:15 - 3:16in five weeks.
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3:18 - 3:21We've lived in cities
for a very long time, -
3:22 - 3:24but most of us didn't live in cities.
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3:24 - 3:27This is Çatalhöyük,
one of the world's first cities. -
3:27 - 3:30At its peak 9,000 years ago,
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3:31 - 3:37people had to walk over the roofs
of others' houses to get to their home. -
3:38 - 3:41If you look carefully
at the map of the city, -
3:41 - 3:43you'll see it has no streets,
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3:44 - 3:47because streets are something we invented.
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3:48 - 3:50The world changes.
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3:50 - 3:52It changes by trial and error.
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3:53 - 3:56We work out slowly and gradually
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3:56 - 3:58how to live in better ways.
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3:59 - 4:04And the world has changed
incredibly quickly most recently. -
4:05 - 4:09It's only within the last six,
seven, or eight generations -
4:09 - 4:12that we have actually realized
that we are a species. -
4:13 - 4:16It's only within the last few decades
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4:16 - 4:19that a map like this could be drawn.
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4:21 - 4:26Again, the underlying map
is the map of world population, -
4:27 - 4:32but over it, you're seeing arrows
showing how we spread out of Africa -
4:32 - 4:36with dates showing you
where we think we arrived -
4:36 - 4:38at particular times.
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4:39 - 4:43I have to redraw this map
every few months, -
4:43 - 4:48because somebody makes a discovery
that a particular date was wrong. -
4:48 - 4:52We are learning about ourselves
at an incredible speed. -
4:55 - 4:56And we're changing.
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4:58 - 5:00A lot of change is gradual.
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5:00 - 5:02It's accretion.
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5:02 - 5:04We don't notice the change
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5:04 - 5:06because we only have short lives,
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5:06 - 5:0970, 80, if you're lucky 90 years.
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5:10 - 5:12This graph is showing you
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5:12 - 5:14the annual rate of population
growth in the world. -
5:15 - 5:19It was very low until around about 1850,
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5:19 - 5:22and then the rate of population growth
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5:22 - 5:23began to rise
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5:24 - 5:26so that around the time I was born,
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5:26 - 5:31when we first saw those images
from the moon of our planet, -
5:32 - 5:35our global population
was growing at two percent a year. -
5:37 - 5:40If it had carried on growing
at two percent a year -
5:42 - 5:45for just another couple of centuries,
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5:46 - 5:48the entire planet would be covered
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5:48 - 5:51with a seething mass of human bodies
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5:51 - 5:53all touching each other.
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5:54 - 5:56And people were scared.
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5:56 - 5:58They were scared of population growth
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5:58 - 6:01and what they called
"the population bomb" in 1968. -
6:01 - 6:03But then, if you look
at the end of the graph, -
6:04 - 6:07the growth began to slow.
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6:08 - 6:09The decade...
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6:09 - 6:13The '70s, the '80s,
the '90s, the noughties, -
6:13 - 6:15and in this decade, even faster...
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6:16 - 6:17Our population growth is slowing.
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6:17 - 6:19Our planet is stabilizing.
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6:19 - 6:22We are heading towards nine,
10, or 11 billion people -
6:22 - 6:23by the end of the century.
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6:24 - 6:27Within that change, you can see tumult.
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6:27 - 6:29You can see the Second World War.
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6:29 - 6:33You can see the pandemic
in 1918 from influenza. -
6:33 - 6:35You can see the great Chinese famine.
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6:36 - 6:38These are the events
we tend to concentrate on. -
6:38 - 6:42We tend to concentrate
on the terrible events in the news. -
6:42 - 6:45We don't tend to concentrate
on the gradual change -
6:45 - 6:47and the good news stories.
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6:49 - 6:50We worry about people.
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6:50 - 6:53We worry about how many people there are.
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6:53 - 6:56We worry about how you can
get away from people. -
6:56 - 7:00But this is the map of the world
changed again to make area large, -
7:01 - 7:05the further away
people are from each area. -
7:05 - 7:09So if you want to know
where to go to get away from everybody, -
7:09 - 7:12here's the best places to go.
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7:12 - 7:15And every year, these areas get bigger,
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7:15 - 7:18because every year,
we are coming off the land globally. -
7:18 - 7:19We are moving into the cities.
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7:19 - 7:22We are packing in more densely.
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7:22 - 7:23There are wolves again in Europe,
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7:23 - 7:27and the wolves are moving west
across the continent. -
7:28 - 7:30Our world is changing.
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7:32 - 7:33You have worries.
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7:35 - 7:40This is a map showing
where the water falls on our planet. -
7:40 - 7:41We now know that.
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7:41 - 7:45And you can look at where Çatalhöyük was,
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7:45 - 7:48where three continents meet,
Africa, Asia, and Europe, -
7:48 - 7:51and you can see there are
a large number of people living there -
7:51 - 7:52in areas with very little water.
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7:52 - 7:56And you can see areas in which
there is a great deal of rainfall as well. -
7:56 - 7:58And we can get a bit more sophisticated.
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8:00 - 8:03Instead of making
the map be shaped by people, -
8:03 - 8:05we can shape the map by water,
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8:05 - 8:07and then we can change it every month
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8:07 - 8:09to show the amount of water
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8:09 - 8:12falling on every small part of the globe.
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8:13 - 8:16And you see the monsoons
moving around the planet, -
8:16 - 8:20and the planet almost appears
to have a heartbeat. -
8:21 - 8:25And all of this only became possible
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8:26 - 8:28within my lifetime
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8:28 - 8:31to see this is where we are living.
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8:32 - 8:33We have enough water.
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8:35 - 8:39This is a map of where
we grow our food in the world. -
8:40 - 8:45This is the areas that we will rely on
most for rice and maize and corn. -
8:47 - 8:50People worry that there won't
be enough food, but we know, -
8:50 - 8:55if we just ate less meat
and fed less of the crops to animals, -
8:55 - 8:57there is enough food for everybody
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8:57 - 9:01as long as we think of ourselves
as one group of people. -
9:03 - 9:04And we also know
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9:06 - 9:08about what we do
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9:08 - 9:11so terribly badly nowadays.
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9:13 - 9:17You will have seen this map
of the world before. -
9:19 - 9:21This is the map
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9:21 - 9:24produced by taking satellite images,
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9:24 - 9:27if you remember those satellites
around the planet -
9:27 - 9:28in the very first slide I showed,
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9:30 - 9:33and producing an image
of what the Earth looks like at night. -
9:35 - 9:37When you normally see that map,
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9:37 - 9:40on a normal map, the kind of map
that most of you will be used to, -
9:41 - 9:45you think you are seeing
a map of where people live. -
9:45 - 9:48Where the lights are shining up
is where people live. -
9:48 - 9:53But here, on this image of the world,
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9:53 - 9:55remember we've stretched the map again.
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9:56 - 10:01Everywhere has the same density
of people on this map. -
10:02 - 10:04If an area doesn't have people,
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10:04 - 10:06we've shrunk it away
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10:06 - 10:07to make it disappear.
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10:07 - 10:09So we're showing everybody
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10:09 - 10:11with equal prominence.
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10:12 - 10:16Now, the lights no longer show you
where people are, -
10:16 - 10:17because people are everywhere.
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10:18 - 10:20Now the lights on the map,
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10:20 - 10:23the lights in London,
the lights in Cairo, the lights in Tokyo, -
10:23 - 10:26the lights on the Eastern Seaboard
of the United States, -
10:26 - 10:29the lights show you where people live
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10:29 - 10:31who are so profligate with energy
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10:32 - 10:34that they can afford
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10:35 - 10:36to spend money
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10:36 - 10:40powering lights to shine up into the sky,
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10:40 - 10:43so satellites can draw an image like this.
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10:44 - 10:46And the areas that are dark on the map
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10:47 - 10:51are either areas where people
do not have access to that much energy, -
10:52 - 10:54or areas where people do,
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10:54 - 10:58but they have learned to stop
shining the light up into the sky. -
10:59 - 11:03And if I could show you this map
animated over time, -
11:03 - 11:06you would see that Tokyo
has actually become darker, -
11:06 - 11:09because ever since the tsunami in Japan,
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11:10 - 11:12Japan has had to rely
on a quarter less electricity -
11:12 - 11:15because it turned
the nuclear power stations off. -
11:16 - 11:18And the world didn't end.
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11:18 - 11:21You just shone less light up.
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11:22 - 11:25There are a huge number
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11:25 - 11:27of good news stories in the world.
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11:28 - 11:32Infant mortality is falling
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11:32 - 11:36and has been falling
at an incredible rate. -
11:36 - 11:38A few years ago,
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11:39 - 11:43the number of babies dying
in their first year of life in the world -
11:43 - 11:46fell by five percent in just one year.
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11:48 - 11:50More children are going to school
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11:51 - 11:53and learning to read and write
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11:53 - 11:56and getting connected to the Internet
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11:56 - 11:59and going on to go to university
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11:59 - 12:03than ever before at an incredible rate,
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12:03 - 12:08and the highest number of young people
going to university in the world -
12:08 - 12:10are women, not men.
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12:12 - 12:15I can give you good news story
after good news story -
12:15 - 12:18about what is getting
better in the planet, -
12:18 - 12:21but we tend to concentrate
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12:22 - 12:25on the bad news that is immediate.
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12:25 - 12:28Rebecca Solnit, I think,
put it brilliantly, -
12:30 - 12:34when she explained: "The accretion
of incremental, imperceptible changes -
12:35 - 12:38which can constitute progress
and which render our era -
12:38 - 12:41dramatically different from the past"...
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12:41 - 12:43The past was much more stable...
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12:45 - 12:50"a contrast obscured by the undramatic
nature of gradual transformation, -
12:50 - 12:53punctuated by occasional tumult."
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12:53 - 12:55Occasionally, terrible things happen.
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12:56 - 12:59You are shown those terrible things
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12:59 - 13:02on the news every night of the week.
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13:02 - 13:06You are not told about
the population slowing down. -
13:06 - 13:09You are not told about the world
becoming more connected. -
13:09 - 13:13You are not told about the incredible
improvements in understanding. -
13:13 - 13:16You are not told about
how we are learning to begin -
13:16 - 13:19to waste less and consume less.
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13:19 - 13:20This is my last map.
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13:20 - 13:23On this map, we have taken the seas
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13:23 - 13:24and the oceans out.
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13:25 - 13:27Now you are just looking
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13:27 - 13:31at about 7.4 billion people
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13:31 - 13:34with the map drawn
in proportion to those people. -
13:35 - 13:37You're looking at over a billion in China,
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13:37 - 13:40and you can see the largest
city in the world in China, -
13:40 - 13:41but you do not know its name.
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13:43 - 13:45You can see that India
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13:45 - 13:47is in the center of this world.
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13:47 - 13:51You can see that Europe is on the edge.
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13:51 - 13:54And we in Exeter today
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13:54 - 13:57are on the far edge of the planet.
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13:57 - 14:00We are on a tiny scrap of rock
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14:00 - 14:01off Europe
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14:02 - 14:04which contains less than one percent
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14:04 - 14:06of the world's adults,
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14:06 - 14:09and less than half a percent
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14:09 - 14:11of the world's children.
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14:11 - 14:16We are living in a stabilizing world,
an urbanizing world, -
14:16 - 14:18an aging world,
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14:18 - 14:20a connecting world.
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14:20 - 14:24There are many, many things
to be frightened about, -
14:25 - 14:30but there is no need for us
to fear each other as much as we do, -
14:30 - 14:34and we need to see
that we are now living in a new world. -
14:35 - 14:36Thank you very much.
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14:36 - 14:39(Applause)
- Title:
- Maps that show us who we are (not just where we are) | Danny Dorling | TEDxExeter
- Description:
-
What does the world look like when you map it using data? Social geographer Danny Dorling invites us to see the world anew, with his captivating and insightful maps that show Earth as it truly is — a connected, ever-changing and fascinating place in which we all belong. You'll never look at a map the same way again.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 14:46
TED Translators admin edited English subtitles for Imagining the world anew - redrawing the world map | Danny Dorling | TEDxExeter | ||
TED Translators admin edited English subtitles for Imagining the world anew - redrawing the world map | Danny Dorling | TEDxExeter | ||
TED Translators admin edited English subtitles for Imagining the world anew - redrawing the world map | Danny Dorling | TEDxExeter |