full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Danny Dorling: Maps that show us who we are (not just where we are)


Unscramble the Blue Letters


footnote

We've lived in cities for a very long time, but most of us didn't live in cities. This is Çatalhöyük, one of the world's first cities. At its peak 9,000 years ago, people had to walk over the roofs of others' houses to get to their home. If you look carefully at the map of the city, you'll see it has no streets, because streets are something we invented. The world changes. It changes by trial and error. We work out slwoly and gradually how to live in better ways. And the world has changed incredibly quickly most recently. It's only within the last six, seven, or eight gioeanrntes that we have actually realized that we are a species. It's only within the last few decades that a map like this could be drawn. Again, the ueilnynrdg map is the map of world population, but over it, you're seeing arrows shinowg how we spread out of Africa with dates showing you where we think we arrived at particular times. I have to rreadw this map every few mnhtos, because somebody makes a discovery that a particular date was worng. We are lenrnaig about ourselves at an incredible speed. And we're changing. A lot of change is gradual. It's accretion. We don't niotce the change because we only have short lives, 70, 80, if you're lucky 90 years. This graph is showing you the anuanl rate of pltiapooun growth in the world. It was very low until around about 1850, and then the rate of population gotrwh baegn to rise so that around the time I was born, when we first saw those images from the moon of our planet, our global population was growing at two percent a year. If it had carried on growing at two percent a year for just another couple of centuries, the entire planet would be covered with a shtieeng mass of human bodies all touching each other. And people were scared. They were scared of population growth and what they called "the population bomb" in 1968. But then, if you look at the end of the graph, the growth began to slow. The decade -- the '70s, the '80s, the '90s, the noughties, and in this decade, even fsater -- our population growth is slowing. Our planet is stabilizing. We are hiedang towards nine, 10, or 11 billion poplee by the end of the cnturey. Within that change, you can see tumult. You can see the Second wrold War. You can see the pandemic in 1918 from influenza. You can see the great cehnsie fanime. These are the events we tend to concentrate on. We tend to concentrate on the terrible events in the news. We don't tend to concentrate on the gradual change and the good news stories.

Open Cloze


footnote

We've lived in cities for a very long time, but most of us didn't live in cities. This is Çatalhöyük, one of the world's first cities. At its peak 9,000 years ago, people had to walk over the roofs of others' houses to get to their home. If you look carefully at the map of the city, you'll see it has no streets, because streets are something we invented. The world changes. It changes by trial and error. We work out ______ and gradually how to live in better ways. And the world has changed incredibly quickly most recently. It's only within the last six, seven, or eight ___________ that we have actually realized that we are a species. It's only within the last few decades that a map like this could be drawn. Again, the __________ map is the map of world population, but over it, you're seeing arrows _______ how we spread out of Africa with dates showing you where we think we arrived at particular times. I have to ______ this map every few ______, because somebody makes a discovery that a particular date was _____. We are ________ about ourselves at an incredible speed. And we're changing. A lot of change is gradual. It's accretion. We don't ______ the change because we only have short lives, 70, 80, if you're lucky 90 years. This graph is showing you the ______ rate of __________ growth in the world. It was very low until around about 1850, and then the rate of population ______ _____ to rise so that around the time I was born, when we first saw those images from the moon of our planet, our global population was growing at two percent a year. If it had carried on growing at two percent a year for just another couple of centuries, the entire planet would be covered with a ________ mass of human bodies all touching each other. And people were scared. They were scared of population growth and what they called "the population bomb" in 1968. But then, if you look at the end of the graph, the growth began to slow. The decade -- the '70s, the '80s, the '90s, the noughties, and in this decade, even ______ -- our population growth is slowing. Our planet is stabilizing. We are _______ towards nine, 10, or 11 billion ______ by the end of the _______. Within that change, you can see tumult. You can see the Second _____ War. You can see the pandemic in 1918 from influenza. You can see the great _______ ______. These are the events we tend to concentrate on. We tend to concentrate on the terrible events in the news. We don't tend to concentrate on the gradual change and the good news stories.

Solution


  1. century
  2. people
  3. generations
  4. notice
  5. heading
  6. underlying
  7. slowly
  8. wrong
  9. redraw
  10. faster
  11. began
  12. world
  13. learning
  14. population
  15. months
  16. showing
  17. annual
  18. growth
  19. famine
  20. chinese
  21. seething

Original Text


footnote

We've lived in cities for a very long time, but most of us didn't live in cities. This is Çatalhöyük, one of the world's first cities. At its peak 9,000 years ago, people had to walk over the roofs of others' houses to get to their home. If you look carefully at the map of the city, you'll see it has no streets, because streets are something we invented. The world changes. It changes by trial and error. We work out slowly and gradually how to live in better ways. And the world has changed incredibly quickly most recently. It's only within the last six, seven, or eight generations that we have actually realized that we are a species. It's only within the last few decades that a map like this could be drawn. Again, the underlying map is the map of world population, but over it, you're seeing arrows showing how we spread out of Africa with dates showing you where we think we arrived at particular times. I have to redraw this map every few months, because somebody makes a discovery that a particular date was wrong. We are learning about ourselves at an incredible speed. And we're changing. A lot of change is gradual. It's accretion. We don't notice the change because we only have short lives, 70, 80, if you're lucky 90 years. This graph is showing you the annual rate of population growth in the world. It was very low until around about 1850, and then the rate of population growth began to rise so that around the time I was born, when we first saw those images from the moon of our planet, our global population was growing at two percent a year. If it had carried on growing at two percent a year for just another couple of centuries, the entire planet would be covered with a seething mass of human bodies all touching each other. And people were scared. They were scared of population growth and what they called "the population bomb" in 1968. But then, if you look at the end of the graph, the growth began to slow. The decade -- the '70s, the '80s, the '90s, the noughties, and in this decade, even faster -- our population growth is slowing. Our planet is stabilizing. We are heading towards nine, 10, or 11 billion people by the end of the century. Within that change, you can see tumult. You can see the Second World War. You can see the pandemic in 1918 from influenza. You can see the great Chinese famine. These are the events we tend to concentrate on. We tend to concentrate on the terrible events in the news. We don't tend to concentrate on the gradual change and the good news stories.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
population growth 4
good news 4
people live 3
incredible rate 2
growth began 2
billion people 2
news stories 2
news story 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
good news stories 2
good news story 2


Important Words


  1. accretion
  2. africa
  3. annual
  4. arrived
  5. arrows
  6. began
  7. billion
  8. bodies
  9. born
  10. called
  11. carefully
  12. carried
  13. centuries
  14. century
  15. change
  16. changed
  17. changing
  18. chinese
  19. cities
  20. city
  21. concentrate
  22. couple
  23. covered
  24. date
  25. dates
  26. decade
  27. decades
  28. discovery
  29. drawn
  30. entire
  31. error
  32. events
  33. famine
  34. faster
  35. footnote
  36. generations
  37. global
  38. good
  39. gradual
  40. gradually
  41. graph
  42. great
  43. growing
  44. growth
  45. heading
  46. home
  47. houses
  48. human
  49. images
  50. incredible
  51. incredibly
  52. influenza
  53. invented
  54. learning
  55. live
  56. lived
  57. lives
  58. long
  59. lot
  60. lucky
  61. map
  62. mass
  63. months
  64. moon
  65. news
  66. notice
  67. noughties
  68. pandemic
  69. peak
  70. people
  71. percent
  72. planet
  73. population
  74. quickly
  75. rate
  76. realized
  77. redraw
  78. rise
  79. roofs
  80. scared
  81. seething
  82. short
  83. showing
  84. slow
  85. slowing
  86. slowly
  87. species
  88. speed
  89. spread
  90. stabilizing
  91. stories
  92. streets
  93. tend
  94. terrible
  95. time
  96. times
  97. touching
  98. trial
  99. tumult
  100. underlying
  101. walk
  102. war
  103. ways
  104. work
  105. world
  106. wrong
  107. year
  108. years
  109. çatalhöyük