I have lived a very easy life. I explained this to my son here just recently. Here is what I said to him and to his credit he listened to every word.

Look at this. We have a lot of neighbors. Our sun is just one of many stars in the Milky Way. Can you see us waving? Perhaps we should get closer.

Here we are with our orbiting pals.

Little Mercury, Venus, our very own Earth and nearby Mars. We look pretty big here but  out in the neighborhood we have some bigger mates. Look at how we stack up against Uranus for example.

This is our planet as seen from the moon. A blue sphere orbiting around a medium sized star in our solar system.

On this blue planet we live with over six billion other people.

 You know that this blue ball is made up of a little over 70% water. The remaining 30% is where all the action is for the human race. The six billion are divided up on seven large land masses. We call them continents. Let's take a look.

 By luck, chance, some divine plan or karma we ended up on this part of the planet, son.

  This was very good luck on our part. All the continents have their pros and cons but we probably ended up in a place with more pros than cons. We ended up in this section of this continent, a man-made country.

 This is a new country and was an experiment. People from all the other continents live here. There are a variety of cultures, accents, dialects, races, and colors of people living here. But the lottery wasn't over as we drew another good number. We ended up here.

 I included parts of British Columbia and Alberta along with Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Washington. This our home. I have been all over and you have been to all of these areas. This is where I am most comfortable. Other people drew different numbers and ended up in great spots too. California has much too offer. The Southwest states have some great things. Florida is a scenic paradise. The Atlantic states have big cities, wonderful beaches and some states have fertile farm lands, and several border the Great Lakes which are an unreal phenomenon. Anyone who drew this lucky North America number did very well. Here let me show you.

 "Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

 The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.

• According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

• Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

• Based on enrollment data, about 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not in school in 2005; 57 per cent of them were girls. And these are regarded as optimistic numbers.

• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

• Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.

• Infectious diseases continue to blight the lives of the poor across the world. An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with 3 million deaths in 2004. Every year there are 350–500 million cases of malaria, with 1 million fatalities: Africa accounts for 90 percent of malarial deaths and African children account for over 80 percent of malaria victims worldwide.

• Water problems affect half of humanity:

• Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

• Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day.

• More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day.

• Access to piped water into the household averages about 85% for the wealthiest 20% of the population, compared with 25% for the poorest 20%.

• 1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometre, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 litres per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 litres of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.)

• Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhea.

• Millions of women spending several hours a day collecting water.

• Number of children in the world  2.2 billion.    Number in poverty-1 billion (every second child)  For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:

• 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
• 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)
• 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)

• 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
• 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation

• 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized
• 15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom)

• Rural areas account for three in every four people living on less than US$1 a day and a similar share of the world population suffering from malnutrition. However, urbanization is not synonymous with human progress. Urban slum growth is outpacing urban growth by a wide margin.

• Approximately half the world’s population now live in cities and towns. In 2005, one out of three urban dwellers (approximately 1 billion people) was living in slum conditions.

• In developing countries some 2.5 billion people are forced to rely on biomass—fuel wood, charcoal and animal dung—to meet their energy needs for cooking. In sub-Saharan Africa, over 80 percent of the population depends on traditional biomass for cooking, as do over half of the populations of India and China.

• Indoor air pollution resulting from the use of solid fuels [by poorer segments of society] is a major killer. It claims the lives of 1.5 million people each year, more than half of them below the age of five: that is 4000 deaths a day. To put this number in context, it exceeds total deaths from malaria and rivals the number of deaths from tuberculosis.

• In 2005, the wealthiest 20% of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private consumption. The poorest fifth just 1.5%:

The poorest 10% accounted for just 0.5% and the wealthiest 10% accounted for 59% of all the consumption:

• 1.6 billion people — a quarter of humanity — live without electricity:

 The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.

• The world’s wealthiest countries (approximately 1 billion people) accounted for $36.6 trillion dollars (76%).

• The world’s billionaires — just 497 people (approximately 0.000008% of the world’s population) — were worth $3.5 trillion (over 7% of world GDP).

• Low income countries (2.4 billion people) accounted for just $1.6 trillion of GDP (3.3%)

• Middle income countries (3 billion people) made up the rest of GDP at just over $10 trillion (20.7%).

• The total wealth of the top 8.3 million people around the world “rose 8.2 percent to $30.8 trillion in 2004, giving them control of nearly a quarter of the world’s financial assets.”

In other words, about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s financial assets in 2004.

• For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt"  (source of data:

  http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats#src8

   

   

I never want you to forget what I have just shown you here. But pictures are worth a thousand words.

Look at how these people, our brothers and sisters on this lonely planet live.