2000 vs. 2010
I found the following Infographic (as they call them) over at io9 (here). I have kept it as large as I can for posting into my column width. Hopefully you can read it okay. If not then go to the posting at io9 and click the image they have there to get a larger version.
This Infographic highlights some of the numbers from the year 2000 compared to the year 2010.
Observations
The world’s population has increased by almost 1 billion in just 10 years: It looks like forecasts made in 1995 of seven (7) billion people on the planet by the end of 2012 were a tiny bit out. The world’s population is likely to hit seven billion in the first quarter of 2011 (just months away) which is something like 21 months ahead of the 1995 forecasts.
Electricity consumption by China has increased by over 300%. I heard on BBC News (on the ABC24 News Channel) last night that sometime in the last two months China overtook the USA as the world’s biggest consumer of energy (from all sources). A semi-bad aspect of this is that a lot of China’s energy consumption comes from burning coal (I think that China is Australia’s primary customer for coal but am not 100% on this). However there is a massive new crude oil pipeline going in from Russia to China that will soon be operational—it may already be operational. This will hopefully allow China to cut back on some of its use of coal.
USA power consumption has fallen by almost 1.25%. Who would have thought that we would ever see power consumption in the USA fall? As much as the world needs to cut back on the consumption of power I am not sure that a fall in consumption of power in the USA is a good thing.
The Worldwide differential temperature has gone up by a staggering 0.57°F. A bit like the population going up quicker than expected the Worldwide differential temperature compared to the 1951 to 1980 average has increased quicker than expected. Original forecasts expected a half degree rise over 20 to 25 years but, based on the chart above (I have not checked the source cited: NASA), we have experienced slightly more than a 0.5°F rise in just 10 years. Can’t be good!! Although there is a group of people that think the warming of the Earth is part of a natural cycle and is not man made. In a way I hope they are right, but ……..
Average price of crude oil per barrel increased by 230 percent: It is highly unlikely that the cost of crude oil is ever going to go down again. I can remember seeing crude oil quoted on the nightly news at around $16 a barrel back when I was living at my previous house (which was around 1995). According to this chart is was $28 a barrel in 2000 and is now $65 a barrel and I can recall a recent news item forecasting that crude would be US$100 a barrel by 2012. Assuming they meant the start of 2012 then this is now only 12 months away.
As an aside I used to pump petrol at my dad’s shop. This was back in the days when you actually did “pump” it. You pumped it up into a glass bowl on top of the bowser and then, using a release lever, you let it fill into the waiting vehicle’s fuel tank. Back in those days petrol was 2 shillings and 5 pence a gallon. If we let 2 shillings and 5 pence equal $0.25 then that works out to $0.055 per litre. Can you even imagine that these days? So to fill a car’s 60 litre fuel tank from empty it would cost $3.30—compared to something like $75 today.
