A Village of 100 People

Dear friends,

Remember that email that began with the premise that the earth's population was a village of 100 people? Here are some excerpts, followed by a few additions worth considering.

There would be-
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans

70 would be non-white
30 would be white

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.

Here are a few additions:

40 people don't have enough clean water to drink (50,000 people a day die of water-borne disease)
33 have no electricity
16 have electricity less than 10 hours a day
16 live on $1 or less per day
33 live on $2 per day

If you live in the U.S., you are part of the 5% of the global population which is consuming 40% of the world's resources and creating 25% of the emissions that cause global warming. Today's generation has consumed more resources than the 14 previous generations together--and much of it becomes landfill. The poorest 20% of the world's population consume just 1% of its resources.

Using the "ecological footprint" model of Mathis Wackernagel, the average American's lifestyle requires 24 acres per person to sustain; this compares with a world average of 7 acres, 4 acres in China, and 1 acre in Bangladesh. If each person were to have an equal share of bio-productive land and sea, leaving nothing for the 25 million other species, there would be 5.2 acres available per person.

If these 100 people were part of your extended family, and YOU were that one person with a college education, a computer, a good income, and money in the bank, how might you change your lifestyle?

What do you really need, and what is a luxury?

Would you work at a job which creates luxuries for people who don't need them?

What work might you choose to do instead?