How the World Has Changed from 2000 to 2010
By Barry Ritholtz - January 3rd, 2011, 2:00PM
Tweet
Facebook
Reddit
Digg this!
Comments
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
January 3rd, 2011 at 5:08 pm
if the premise of the article is show trends over a ten year period, then it seems that the category of ‘people killed by natural disasters worldwide’ is skewed by an unusual year last year. if you back out haiti, that brings it down to around 40,000 deaths. according to Munich Re, the annual average is around 77,000, and 2009 was only around 11,000.
January 3rd, 2011 at 6:04 pm
What was interesting to me, was that our overall power consumption was down, however slight. Compare that to China, which nearly quadrupled. I’m not sure I understand our slight decline.
I know that energy conservation, alternative energy sources and the economic downturn all contribute to this decline, but come on, this is America. This country isn’t getting any less mobile, and it doesn’t lack an appetite for new energy intensive products and the juice to power them. And we have 27 million more people now, than we did ten years ago.
Can someone explain why this is?
January 3rd, 2011 at 6:16 pm
—
This country isn’t getting any less mobile, and it doesn’t lack an appetite for new energy intensive products and the juice to power them.
—
Probably a bunch of small changes and not just one big thing.
Higher energy costs cause people to dial back a bit; fewer SUV’s, some heavy mfg moved from here to Asia, airlines cut back flights and fill their planes more efficiently, efficiency stds for appliances, flat panels (of the same size) use less juice than CRT’s, CFL bulbs replacing incandescent, better insulation, recycling, etc.
January 3rd, 2011 at 6:19 pm
and if I did my math right…
China’s 4.17T kw/h == 14.23 Quadrillion BTU
(the US was listed as 97.73 Quadrillion BTU)
January 3rd, 2011 at 7:07 pm
What’s up with earthquakes? That data really rattled me.
January 3rd, 2011 at 7:47 pm
The economic downturn has definitely reduced energy consumption, as well as things being generally more efficient.
January 4th, 2011 at 6:46 am
So if the price of crude keeps going up, gasoline will continue to rise and put a crimp on that vaunted recovery we keep hearing about. If the environment keeps heating up, the weather will only become more erratic, food will be harder to grow, fresh water will be a problem (due to both flooding and droughts) as will erosion, more species will become endangered if not just die off (that’s plants, animals, fish, birds), diseases will spread easier, and human life in general will continue to degrade in quality and our own species will experience a bottleneck.
Great. i guess “our” politicians will continue with full speed ahead!
January 4th, 2011 at 7:08 am
review of the past year’s weather in 2 min. vid:
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/43867/2010-weather-year-in-review.asp
January 4th, 2011 at 10:52 am
“What’s up with earthquakes?” – I would speculate that as the global temperature rises the earths crust expands – thus weakening the mold
January 4th, 2011 at 11:57 am
earthquakes are not significantly increasing statistically, at least large ones, according to the USGS:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/increase_in_earthquakes.php
our ability to monitor and locate them has increased significantly. in general, same is true for tornadoes.
January 4th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
these combined stats paint a picture of america as a mature company and the rest of the world as young tigers. no surprises here!