I’ve just had another ‘Philiosophy of Science’ meeting where we were talking about social responsibility. The topic of the Manhattan Project came up and the Hiroshima and Nagisaki bombs as well as the Challenger Distaster and Columbia. We ended up discussing how many people die every year globally and how it compares to the number killed in individual events. The whole ‘how many people die everyday’ thing got me Googling and I found this:

http://esa.un.org/unpp/p2k0data.asp

Its a site from the United Nations that gives you lots of population stats including, for the 2000 to 2005 period:

Deaths ~ 150,000 people/day
Births ~ 350,000 people/day
Net Popoluation Increase ~ 200,000 people/day

In 1950 the figure for net change was approximately ~ 110,000 people/day. So just to place it into a rather peculiar (and possibly perverse) context, the Hiroshima bomb, which killed around 140,000 people, therefore in a single act reduced the global population in one day. I wonder when else this has happened in history?

It means that 9/11, was merely background noise in mortality terms. Car accidents on the other hand kill 1.2 million annually (~3,300 daily) which means that the car itself (or rather the driving of it) is the equivalent of having a World Trade Centre-esque attack every single day. So I am lead to ask where’s the War on Cars?

The point is not to marginalise death but rather to get people talking about it context. I find it very odd that quite so many people die every day. Yet this is obvious and natural. The Challenger distaster which killed seven people had a national impact, yet that many people die globally every three minutes.

I’m confused, which I’m liking more and more these days…