In a normal average day, for the vast majority of us, not a lot happens. You get up, go to work, come home, watch the TV, browse the net, maybe go out then it’s back home and bed.
However, there 7.5 billion of us, so during a normal average day for the human race, extraordinary things happen. When we look at our combined actions, you start to realize just how big our society is and just what the effects are on us and the rest of the planet.
Look up to the sky and if its clear and dark night you might see the International Space Station as it orbits 220 miles above the earth at 17,500 miles per hour.
In one day, the astronauts on the ISS will travel just over 420,000 miles, about 677,000km, that’s the equivalent of going to the moon and coming 75% of the way back, every day and they will see the sunrise and sun set 16 times.
Meanwhile back on earth, in one day, 82,000 people get married, 20,000 get divorced, 550,000 babies are conceived, of which around 70% will survive pregnancy and lead to 385,000 people being born and for 159,000 of us it will be our last day on earth.
In one day, around 3,500 people will die in road traffic accidents, 3,200 in other accidents, 2,300 people will commit suicide, 1,650 as the result of violence, 1,100 from falls, 1,060 from drowning, 950 from poisoning, 850 from fire and 500 as a result of armed conflict.
In one day, infectious diseases will account for the loss of about 11,700 people from respiratory infections, 5,900 from diarrhoea, 5,600 from HIV/AIDS, 4,000 from Tuberculosis, 2,400 from malaria, 354 from STD’s, 288 from Hepatitis B, 17 from intestinal nematodes and 15 from .
In one day, 47,000 people will pass away from heart attacks, 21,000 from cancer, 11,000 from non-infectious respiratory diseases, 7,600 from obesity related issues, 5,600 from digestive diseases, 3,400 from neuropsychiatric conditions, 3,100 from diabetes, 2500 from genitourinary diseases. 1,300 will die from malnutrition and we will kill 115,000 of our own unborn children and euphemistically call it termination.
In one day, We collectively shed 35 million litres of tears, enough to fill 14 Olympic sized swimming pools. We will breath 196 billion cubic meters of air, 14 times the size if the biggest building in the world, the Boeing Everett factory in Washington built to make the Boeings biggest planes.
In one day, we humans produce 10 billion litres of urine, enough to fill 4000 Olympic swimming pools. 1 million tonnes of facies with a volume of equal to 1 million cubic meters, enough to fill the empire state building and enough methane to provide energy for 35,000 US households.
In one day, we take 3.2 billion photos, perform 5.1 billion google searches, we watch 5 billion videos on YouTube, 700 million comments and 300 million photos are posted to Facebook, we send 500 million tweets, 213 million skype calls are made and 3.6 million terabytes of internet traffic is generated. It’s estimated that the amount of electricity used for the internet alone, from all the servers on it and all devices used to browse it, is about 3,300 GW, which is about 14% of total electricity production and we also send 221 billion emails, of which its reckoned that 67% are unwanted spam.
Every day there are just over 100,000 flights per day carrying 8,500,000 people around the world with an average of about 700,000 people being in the air at any one time.
In one day, there are 107,000 criminal convictions of which 56,000 are for theft, 18,600 for burglary, 11,500 for assault, 9,500 for robbery, 7600 for motor vehicle theft, 1270 for sexual violence, 1,200 for murder, 790 for rape, 400 for sexual offences against minors and 215 for kidnapping. The revenue from the illegal world wide drugs trade is estimated to be about $1.2 billion and ID fraud is estimated to cost about $13.6 million.
In one day, there are 3.9 million smartphones are sold, 660,000 TV’s , 571,000 computers along with 368,000 motorcycles, 211,000 cars and 7000 trucks and $200 million is spent on video games.
The slaughter of animals for our food is well beyond any kind of biblical scale. In one day, we process 128 million chickens, 6.3 million ducks, 3.2 million pigs, 1.8 million turkeys, 1.4 million geese, 970,000 goats, 810,000 head of cattle, 12,600 horses and 288,000 tonnes of fish.
Then there are the 2.8 billion eggs, 1,7 billion litres of milk, 6.2 million tonnes of cereal, 4.2 million tonnes of sugar, 2 million tonnes of vegetables and 1.7 million tonnes of fruit.
We consume 55 billion servings of all types of beverages excluding water, we produce 528 million litres of beer and 72 million litres of wine
In one day, 3.5 million tonnes of edible food are lost to waste, about 1/3 of all our food production, along with the 685 billion litres of fresh water used to grow it and when it decomposes, it generates 9 million tonnes of CO2, which is about 10% of the total CO2 released by burning all types of fossil fuels. We throw away 4.8 million tonnes of rubbish which would fill up about 480,000 garbage trucks, which if you parked them end to end would stretch 3470 miles or from New York to London.
In one day, we use 93 million barrels of oil and liquid fuels, 57 terawatt hours of electricity, enough to power the entire united kingdom for 67 days. We burn 9.8 billon cubic meters of gas and produce 87 million tonnes of CO2. $57 billion in global taxes are collected and the expenditure on the world wide military is around $5 billion.
88,000 acres of rainforest will be cut down, 81,000 acres of land will become desert, 47,000 acres are lost due to soil erosion and 74 species will become extinct.
All in all, it’s a normal average day for the human race….
Comments
Very thought provoking Video, one wonders how long we can go consuming at this rate ?? and still have a habitable planet to live on??