Global? Really?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/05/gambia-argos-president-security-guard-adama-barrow

Maybe the election of an ex-Argos employee as President of The Gambia replacing its dictator counts?

Ah yes. So that's four. How many nation states are there in the world? How many have done an upyours vote recently?

195, or 196 if Taiwan is counted as a nation state.

The self-centredness of the Times report makes me laugh.

I haven't read the article but all the talk of global reactions has made me ponder the factors that are having a global impact. 3 come to mind:

a. The Credit Crunch in 2008 and the lingering, unequal impact

b. The rise in world population. I was surprised to find when looking at global warming that the world population was about 1.6 bn people in 1900 and over 7 bn now. That is a big rise in, relatively speaking, a short period in human experience.

c. The present day ease of communication, initially through radio and TV but now via mobile phones and the internet.

Are there other global factors that may be influencing people? Personally, I am not sure if the 3 events mentioned are massive shifts. Perhaps there are small shifts in underlying positions which have come to the surface.

Mind you, there is a tendency in media to claim that tiny percentage changes affect the whole world. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

Better sigh my (patronising, natch!) hey ho!

x posts, cunco.

The human population has risen very sharply because our species has been so successful at surviving against the odd (i.e. whatever Nature throws at us). The good news is that the rate of increase in human population all over the world is falling. Hopefully it will stabilise at a sustainable level at some point.

* odds

The immediacy of internet communications has played a massive role in change factors becoming global. Consider the impact of the Trump/Clinton campaign on our lives as it unfolded on the news channels around the world. We now watch closely what's happening worldwide.

China's forty year old, one child policy must have had an impact on the global population statistics, although that changed on January 1st 2016. Couples may now request to have two children, but need government-issued permits, or face the sanction of a forced abortion.

Climate change is certainly coming up on the inside lane as something that will affect us all - all 7 billion of us - eventually. Tornadoes, floods, heatwaves..

The other big factor in the Western world is anti-biotic resistance. Soon even the simplest operation could be life-threatening, if the media are to be believed.

Climate change is certainly a factor but, to a degree, climate impact has always a threat. I've recently been reading about storms in 1286 and 1287 that altered the coast line of Kent overnight. Storms in 1382 had catastrophic effects on land and sea in UK and Europe and may have killed 100,000 people.

I suppose these were hardly 'global' events but impact of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 was global. I've read that it reduced average global temperatures by over 1 degree for 5 years.

I know, none of this is relevant to recent global voting trends. Back in my box.