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
- century
- people
- generations
- notice
- heading
- underlying
- slowly
- wrong
- redraw
- faster
- began
- world
- learning
- population
- months
- showing
- annual
- growth
- famine
- chinese
- 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
- accretion
- africa
- annual
- arrived
- arrows
- began
- billion
- bodies
- born
- called
- carefully
- carried
- centuries
- century
- change
- changed
- changing
- chinese
- cities
- city
- concentrate
- couple
- covered
- date
- dates
- decade
- decades
- discovery
- drawn
- entire
- error
- events
- famine
- faster
- footnote
- generations
- global
- good
- gradual
- gradually
- graph
- great
- growing
- growth
- heading
- home
- houses
- human
- images
- incredible
- incredibly
- influenza
- invented
- learning
- live
- lived
- lives
- long
- lot
- lucky
- map
- mass
- months
- moon
- news
- notice
- noughties
- pandemic
- peak
- people
- percent
- planet
- population
- quickly
- rate
- realized
- redraw
- rise
- roofs
- scared
- seething
- short
- showing
- slow
- slowing
- slowly
- species
- speed
- spread
- stabilizing
- stories
- streets
- tend
- terrible
- time
- times
- touching
- trial
- tumult
- underlying
- walk
- war
- ways
- work
- world
- wrong
- year
- years
- çatalhöyük