The DIGITS

Numbers that count in 2008


ECO MATTERS

To keep total planetary warming below the 2°C level – the maximum it is believed we can risk to avoid crossing tipping points that could lead to rapid warming – we need:

• An end to all tropical deforestation
• 700 new gigawatt-sized nuclear plants (plus 300 replacement plants)
• 800 gigawatt-sized coal plants with all the carbon captured and permanently sequestered
• Efficient buildings: savings totalling 5 million gigawatt-hours
• 1 million large wind turbines
• Vehicle efficiency: all cars 60 miles per US gallon
• Wind for vehicles: 2,000 gigawatts wind, with most cars plug-in hybrid-electric/pure electric vehicles
• Cellulosic biofuels: using up to one-sixth of the world’s cropland

- Dr Joseph Romm, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress

Up on HIGH

2008 WORLD AIRLINE AWARDS’ TOP FIVE AIRLINES

1 Singapore Airlines
2 Cathay Pacific
3 Qantas
4 Thai Airways
5 Asiana Airlines

2kg Total in-flight weight reduction after All Nippon Airways (ANA) introduced lighter porcelain for its first and business classes

SIX tonnes Weight of catering equipment and food on a typical long-haul British Airways flight

ECONOMIES OF SCALE

In 1950, there were 2.5 billion people and a global economy of US$7 trillion. Six decades later, the global population is 6.7 billion with a US$66 trillion gross world product


US$157 billion
Ten-year-old Google’s current market value

16 minutes 33 seconds
Average time it takes for a worker interrupted by an email to get back to what he or she was doing

“If you wait for a career to be successful, you may miss the best ideal age for childbearing.”

LEE HSIEN LOONG, Singapore’s Prime Minister, in a speech on 17 August calling on the city- state’s women to marry young and have more children to encourage population growth