Transcriber: Judith Matz
Reviewer: Tatjana Jevdjic I, luckily, went past Ikea and bought some boxes
when the projector didn't work. So I can start with the boxes. This is the world when I was born. Each box is one billion people. There were one billion people
living in industrialized countries, and they all, more or less,
had access to a washing machine. This washing powder
for a washing machine symbolizes a relatively good material life condition. So we let that be the industrial [world] —
Good is going that way. That way is having a better life.
A worse life is going that way. And there were about two billion people
living in developing countries, where the bad life [is], and that is symbolized by not even
having enough potatoes to eat. So I put the potatoes there. By the way, the potatoes
came to Sweden about 1800. Great starvation we had. The use increased from about
5 kg per person, 1800, to 250 kg per person, 1850. The first woman ever admitted
to the Academy of Science of Sweden was the one who showed
how to make vodka from potato. (Laughter) And that is important for food because that saved flour and other things
for making bread. So it was really important. So about half of these two billions,
they were not food-secure. They often went to bed hungry.
Half of them, at least, had food. They lived in a rural area.
Green is rural area. Those mainly lived in cities.
Red is city. That was the world when I was born,
and that was what created your mindsets. That there were a Western World
and it was the rest. And then we have kept changing names
for the Western World and the rest, but basically, the mindset has been kept. And... so is the screen still, yes?
So I continue. What has happened during my lifetime?
We got three billion people more in the world. Three billion people more.
And where do they live? Where do they live?
What has happened? Actually, this one billion, in the 1950s, they got richer and wealthier
and got access to more health care, so let's move them there. And about one billion new people who came –
the population growth has doubled – they are now living here
with washing machines. And these people got
a little better life in the rural area, but the population was growing all the time,
so there's one more billion here. And then we have one billion people
who live in slums. They live in urban areas,
but under miserable conditions. Not safe water,
not good living conditions. This is more or less the world today. Perhaps the slums shouldn't be there,
perhaps it should be there. What is interesting is that
few things we know so well as how many people we will be. How do we know that so well? Because when we go back 25 to 30 years
and look at what economists said, what medical people said,
what lawyers said, what military people said,
what demographers said, there was only demographers
who were right. Only the demographers were right. No-one could predict
the fall of the Soviet Empire. No-one understood
that HIV would come around. No-one understood this or that. But demographers are bloody right,
and they say, "It's quite easy", they say. "Those who are going to get killed
within the next quarter of the century, they're already born,
so we know how many they are. And we know pretty well what they are
going to think about when they are seventeen. And we know pretty well what they are
going to do the coming ten years." It's just how many kids they are going to get,
that's the only thing, but that they are going to keep up with. So, we know actually
what will happen quite well. We know that if I live for 100 years,
I live up to 2048, we'll be three billion more. This is what we will be in the rest. And they will all be urban. The rural population of the world
has stopped growing. Look here – You have three billion urban areas,
you have three billion rural areas. There will be no more people
in the countryside. And of course, I'm simple now,
I'm vulgarly simple. So take or give 300 million
here and there. But it's about – where will they live?
This is what's interesting, isn't it? Will these people be slum over here —
what will happen? Well, we are seeing something –
this is what we don't know! We know that there will be
three billion more. If we don't have something killing
worse than the Black Death, and we're talking about the Black Death,
we're not talking about the flu, or Hiroshima, or these hiccups
which have happened in the last time. No, we are talking about
these really tough things, like what happened
to the native people in the Americas when the Europeans came
with their diseases. Those sort of things.
If that will happen, I will be wrong. But if that will not happen,
we will be three billion. Now, where will we be? Well, many things say that these people –
these are in Asia. They're Brazilians, I see down here,
they're Mexicans... These people here, you know,
they're moving on. They are the ones
who had the money for the bailout. (To audience:) Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you'll get it back. (Laughter) Calm down, calm down.
(Laughter) So, they will obviously catch up, won't they?
They will live there. And there will probably be another billion
of the growth of kids here, who'll move in, and they'll get the washing machine, because — how many here
are so environmentally friendly so you hand-wash your jeans
and your sheets? Anyone? I have one there.
When did you start to do that? Off voice: Just this summer.
Hans Rosling: This summer, yes. That's always what they say in September,
there's one fanatic. (Laughter) I invite you to my lunch seminar,
to discuss washing machines. It happens about
once a year in September — that someone started to handwash.
Otherwise we don't! We love the washing machine! And then we open the washing machine,
what do we say? "Long live the steelwork!
Long live the hydroelectric power dam! And long live
the chemical processing industry that makes my life so nice so I can go to TED
instead of standing at home, washing." (Laughter) So they will live there. And then we'll probably have
one more living here. And these people don't like it there,
so they move there. And these people work very hard
in their rural areas and they will work in there. And these people are very good,
they work there. What about this? This is the big challenge. This is the big challenge.
This is the bottom billion. Those are our fellow human beings
who have the toughest life. These are young women in Afghanistan. These are young men, desperate,
in Somalia, who go for piracy. These are a large part
of the Congolese population. These are native Indians from Bolivia. These are the bottom billion. That stands out as a special challenge
in the world today — that we have about one billion people
that doesn't move forward. Why don't they move forward? Are they lazy?
No, they're not lazy. They get more children all the time.
So some move forwards and go there. But the population growth is in this box.
This is the problem. And we have them growing. We have not had any mechanism for them. This is the only thing
I quarrel with you on [unclear]. Because it doesn't move on. And we have so bad measurements
of these people. They don't have cell phones!
They don't have electricity! That wonderful electricity
that runs the washing machine! I would prefer to have it green. I would prefer
to have it produced in new ways. But this is the bottom billion people. How would we make that work? We can't get a good world
if we have pirates, if we have producers of heroin,
if we have war dealers. Because the bad people from over there,
they'll do their business down there. This is how the world works.
And we have to change the concept. We have to realize that while
the world is going like this, and they want to have a good life
in rural areas, so they go over here, and the world continues like this,
this is the future. This is the future of the world. And you know what "West" is,
you remember? This little box down there
is the West! Only one. Only one which is "West".
Which came out of Venice. And that fantastic economic growth
in West Europe, that fantastic liberation of human mind, which was so successful, which was also
so brutal to the rest of the world. So, this is more or less
what remains of it, down there. The others are Asian, Arabs, Latin-Americans,
Asians are all of these here. The question is: Will we get everyone
into the ecological world or not? Or will we leave this one? Read Paul Collier's book
"The Bottom Billion". This is the new concept. And don't call this "developing countries",
because they are moving, these are the emerging economies
that are moving. I'll put them down here to see
how the screen is doing. They're going to change the cable. Analogue wasn't that bad, was it? (Laughter, applause) See! "Preparing to standby",
someone has taken out my electricity... There's no electricity there... I hope there will be postproduction
in this TED video. (Laughter) And that we are not live.
This is about as bad as things can be. This was the starting point. This is the most common comment,
or question, or thought that is evoked when we discuss
about global health issues. This was the number one question
that Bill Gates got when he spoke at TED, last time. But if you save all these poor kids
you will destroy the planet! I talked with Al Gore,
it's the number one question he gets. We were discussing with the economists
about better publications in global health, this is the number one mail they get. This is the number one question we get
from Swedish secondary school kids. They say, "Well, we can't
save all these kids here, we can't give them potatoes,
we can't let them survive, because then we destroy the planet.
Then, they will be more." Now, the truth is that
this is not a moral issue. This is just bloody ignorant people
who think like that. Because it's not true.
It's not about moral. It's actually, if we don't save
all the poor kids, we will destroy the planet. And I'll show you why.
Just simple mathematics. This is the opposite
to the former glimpse, isn't it? Bloody rational.
We have to be bloody rational. (Laughter) And I'm very conventional.
I'm heteronormative, you know? Father and mother get together
and they get six kids. In the rainforest, four die, and only two
survive to the next generation. That's called ecological balance. Easy mathematics, isn't it? Then comes agriculture,
then comes industrialization, mother and father get together,
they get six kids, only two die, but that was enough for Carl Oscar
and Kristina to get upset and emigrate to the United States, as in, the quarter
of the Swedish population. (Laughter) But they got four survivors! This is existing and ecological
unsustainable situation. Two persons in one generation
leave four others. That means you double in 25 years,
you get four times as many in 50 years, you get eight times as many in 75 years and in one century, you increase
the population sixteen times. This is modern time: Father and mother,
or any other combination you like – (Laughter, applause) – get together, and they get two kids, no-one dies, and they are back
in ecological balance. But don't tell me that people in the rainforest live in ecological balance with nature. They die in ecological balance with nature. It's only by burying most of your children
that you maintain ecological balance. Don't be romantic.
Don't have illusions. The intermediate is to exist
in ecological unbalance. You can't stay there very long. You either have to decrease this number,
or you will have to increase that number. There's no other way. You can stick there
for one to two centuries. Then you have to move,
back or forward. And this is what we want,
we want to live in ecological balance, and everyone except you
want washing machines. And you probably don't have kids.
(Off voice: "Oh yeah.") You have? And you handwash, for the kids?
This is getting really interesting. We're going to run a documentary on you.
(Laughter) So, this is more or less where we are. Now, you know what I showed the first time
at TED, which became so interesting, was when I showed this with
size of family that way, length of life there, industrialized countries,
developing countries, nineteen-fifty, and what has happened
is that the whole thing has changed. Like that. But still, we have
Afghanistan down there. Because the leaders, the Taliban,
wanted their country to remain in medieval age. But most have gone up here already. And here is the bottom billion. There is the bottom billion.
It keeps growing. So even if you get hundreds of million
out of that box, you still have it here. And the lack of potato
makes that kids keep dying. The families are too poor down there. Now, when I asked
the Swedish media elite, we have developed a new thing,
we couldn't launch it here, we are making a global casino in Gapminder,
so we can get really brutally vulgar. And you have chips and you bet on it.
So I tested the media elite. This was [unclear] big event. And I let the media elite of Sweden
guess where Iran was today. Iran was down here 1950. They had 40 in life expectancy,
they had seven children. And these dots is the elite of the Swedish media,
where they thought Iran was today. Only one was right. The Swedish media elite is about
25 to 30 years after their time. We have this embarrassing test, and I also had all the venture capitalists
in Stockholm, and they were thirty-five years off.
(Laughter) So... they probably had those incentives
we heard of before. (Laughter) That keeps them focused,
so they don't see what changes. (Laughter) And where we are, as we say
in the Gapminder Foundation, we are not just nonprofit,
we are strategically nonprofit. Not ideologically nonprofit,
we like business. When boring things have to be done,
give people incentive and let them go. When serious things have to be done,
do other things. Do it in other ways, you know. Now, this is the world 1800.
You have income per person here. 200 dollars, 2000 dollars,
20,000 dollars that way. And here you have life expectancy. The healthiest country in the world, 1800,
had forty years of life expectancy. And those countries were also the richest. This one, and this one. And of course, it was the slave owners who had such a profitable sugar
production in the Caribbean, who were at that time the richest,
and this is what happened with the world. See how it catches up? You have the flat world of Thomas Friedman,
the boxes are coming this way. Question is, what will happen with this box? That keeps a completely new
analytical awareness and realization: How should we handle that one? Just to prove my case here – this is Zhang,
our guest researcher from China. He thought it was stupid to talk about
all these countries, so he made all countries of the world blue. And then [he] made the provinces
of China red. (Laughter) You can't compare China with the world,
you have to see the diversity within China, and compare it with the countries
of the rest of the world. So this is now 1952, Sweden was up there, we had 72 in life expectancy
and 90,000 dollars, Shanghai was down there, 46, and 1700 — actually, Sweden was
at that Shanghai position 1870! Shanghai was 70 years after Sweden,
and we can fade on the others, and we look at the catch up of Shanghai to Sweden,
how many years do we have to go? Shanghai is today where Sweden was 1995. About 14 years after. They went
from 70 years behind to 14 years behind. They are up there. This is what happened.
They are moving this way. And we will also see
what happens with the crisis. Here, I have instead projections. It is an IMF –
International Monitor Funds – projection, after the crisis,
and the life expectancy at birth here, also projections from the WHO –
and this is what happened. I will show you this terrible crisis.
Watch out, here we go. Their money-brother is still happy,
and here we are. You see? (Laughter) You missed the crisis!
You missed the crisis! (Laughter, applause) Here we are, I put it to slow play,
and here we go, Four... five... six, seven
and two steps backwards and then forwards. It's nothing!
(Laughter) It's nothing in the course of human history!
(Applause) The only thing that happened,
look at United States and China, you can see that China
never takes a tango step backwards. They just move on,
whereas the United States gracefully take one step backwards
to wait for China. (Laughter) This means that China got an extra two years,
faster, they caught up. It's a very small thing, you know. The crisis had just a little like this.
And then it's over. So it's like rabbit sex
or something like that. (Laughter) In the course of the history. So, the world is like this: The bottom billion today gets six kids,
and two, or one, dies. We've taken away smallpox!
We don't have enough things to kill them with! That's why population
is still growing in that box. We don't have a situation where letting the children die
in this box will help anything. Because they are already growing. We don't have any population
which is under control by death. It's hundred years ago! We don't have to kill people to do that.
(Laughter) Like this! That's the only way
to get them away. And then you think that we will make things better
by not getting vaccines to them. Start to blame Bill Gates without counting.
You have to count! You have to have business plans
of some sort for the world! The only thing we can do here
is not increasing this number one death to two,
or to three. Up there, six minus two — it means
a child mortality rate of 300 per 1,000, not even Afghanistan has that today. Not even with the upper range
of the uncertainty of Afghanistan. And six minus one is
the most common we have. That's a child mortality rate
of about 150 per 1,000. We just don't have high enough
child mortality rates anywhere in the world that can stop population growth. So, there's no way this notion that helping poor kids survive in any way
would increase population growth — It's absolutely marginal! The only thing we have to do
is to get two-child families. The only way to go green. And to get two-child families —
it's very good to avoid this one dying. And also, you have
to provide female education. But not only female education! Female education is often just a measure
of women's empowerment. But women's empowerment is so difficult
to measure, so we measure that girls go to school. But it's only half of the impact
what they learn in school. The most important is that
they can go wherever they want. This is the most important thing. So this is what we need.
We need to go green. And we need to go green
in all boxes. We can't kick them away.
We have to get this with us. Because otherwise,
this box will produce one new billion. They will double within 25 to 50 years. And we will remain unstable, and we will have an amount of pirates
that we cannot even imagine today. We will have an amount of piracy,
and illicit drugs, and problems in the world that makes climate a minor problem. We have to get everyone over here
to the washing machine. And then we can have a decent world. This is the G20 mindset. And I will end by honoring George W. Bush. It's rarely done in Sweden. So I will do that. In his last month, he realized
there was no money in G7. He phoned George Brown and said, "Do you have money? We need money!
I need money to save the banks!" – "No, we have no money!" G7 was like this.
They had no money at all. So they phoned Lula, the socialist
trade union leader in Brazil, and asked: "Do you have some money?" – "Eeeeh, sím, temos dineiro,
we have some money here, we can borrow. But then I want to
sit in the board of the IMF." They phoned Saudi Arabia,
"We always have money", and Putin phoned,
"I also have money!" And the Chinese, of course,
had most of the money. The emerging markets,
emerging economies, whatever you call them, middle income countries,
that's where the money is, that's where people work hardest, that's where people study physics,
mathematics and chemistry, that's where the big farm is moving. The West class is over there.
The world is converging. We have a converging world, and the question is just —
whether this last one will move billion, the bottom billion here, will that move with us, and come
into a modern acceptable world? Of course when I say this
I have to put my three buts. It's not sustainable. We have to do things
in Copenhagen. That is really serious. United States cannot continue to allocate
280 billion dollars on agriculture subsidies and 3 billion dollars on green technology! Hundred [forward] more for grandfathers
than for grandkids. It's wrong. Bloody wrong. Al Gore hasn't succeeded yet.
He just got the prices. He hasn't changed the federal budget,
what it's all about. Don't get the last billion with us.
And it won't happen with one superpower. We have to gather the world.
This is the new mindset. Acquire it, and good luck.
Thank you very much. (Applause)
