Tuesday, June 7, 2011

What Have Numbers Got To Do With It?

Just some numbers I've come across lately that are rather interesting.
We'll start with this. I was curious the other day, after some conversations with the parentals. And I found this.
http://www.earthsendangered.com/list_html.asp
When you eventually find your way to the bottom of this enormous list, you will find the total number of endangered animals. As of today, there are 10,801 endangered animals on the planet.
10,801!
Now while you think about that figure.
Think about the money spent on that so-called 'World Tiger Summit' last November. Basically, they spent around USD 1.4 million of taxpayers' money so that they can sit happily in an air-conditioned room in a fancy hotel in Russia and use flowery, useless language about all the wonderful things they're doing for conservation.
USD 1,400,000
Granted, I don't buy it. They were underestimating to make us feel better about it, surely.
And, surprise surprise, world tiger populations remain at an all time low of 3,200 at the highest estimation. Woohoo. That's one tiger for approximately every 2,117,261 people.
1 tiger: 2,117,261 people
Sorry, I'm enjoying pointing this out a little too much. But yeah, just some food for thought.
Maybe if we divide each tiger into 2,117,261 little bits all our problems would be solved. No more tigers to 'harass' everyone, and we all get to try our hand at this amazing chinese medicine stuff. All 0.000000000004 grams of it!

P.S. Note the sarcasm while reading that last little bit.

No comments:

Post a Comment

What do you think? Does it matter? Should we care?