Visualising the size of a problem!

During my first meeting with students registered for the Bronze Level Achieve More project: addressing the challenge of a looming 10bn population, we spent some time trying to think of how to visualize the problem numerically. Essentially, if the scale of a problem, whatever that problem, forms part of a "public persuasion" campaign, we need to understand the limitations of human perception of things large and small. Thinking of advertising campaigns that have used fear or soothing, to capture the customer with the power of numbers, a few slogans spring to mind. "Domestos kills 99% of household germs (dead)". This avoids absolute numbers (and the careful choice of words must have taken numerous meetings: all germs? all known germs? all bacteria? all microbes etc....), oh and I wonder why it is necessary to kill something twice? Doesn't it work properly the first time? However, Domestos is a very successful brand and maybe the public dont need to know how many strains of bacteria, or number of individual cells there are actually out there! Unilever (the brand owners), who pioneered marketing in the UK and Europe, judged that this statement carries a subliminal numerical threat, but avoids stating it explicitly.

The issue we faced in our discussion was that 10 billion (using the now universal definition of 1000 million) was the number that we should be "scared of". In our reflection session, Dr. Anderson suggested the differences in volume between a grain of salt and a typical washing machine is of the order 1 billion, and therefore 1 grain of salt or sand compared with a row of ten washing machines gives you one physical manifestation of the scale of 10 billion. I think I agree with him that being able to think in comparative visual terms is easier than visualising abstract numbers.

Other numbers are familiar to us. For example: the earth is 93m miles from the sun, is a common fact that always proves useful in pub quizzes. So we could say that one billion is approximately 10 times farther away than the sun, in this case as a measure of distance? That doesn't really work for me? The retail company Home Depot used the slogan, "Low Prices are just the beginning" (which I quite like), as reported in a landmark advertising book entitled: "Billion dollar branding". Billion dollar works for me as an impressive amount of money, and is certainly better than Billion pound branding? or Billion rupee? Or perhaps worst of all, Billion Euro branding! This is the power of language. Billion dollar has a much higher impact than any other currency. These are of course personal opinions, and I should of course practice what I preach and cite the evidence! What are your thoughts?.

The Beast with a Billion Backs (an episode of Futurama) suggests that the writers recognise the power of the word "billion" (and alliteration). However, for me, the word million also works? In the late '60s, Heinz Beans announced that  A million housewives every day, pick up a can of beans and say, Beanz Meanz Heinz. And "Millions of people live below the poverty line", is often used by politicians to emphasize the "dimensions of poverty". In 1860, Abraham Lincoln used a version of a slavery slogan to emphasize the excessive cost of defence: "Millions for defense, but not one cent for Tribute!", again showcasing the use of comparative numbers. In fact, I would argue that the words billion and million are synonymous with "massive", and are often not considered by most people as numerical terms?  So with these thoughts in mind, how can we convey the scale of the global population crisis. 

The population of the planet stands at 7.4bn, in thirty years it will reach 10bn: at which point the existence of the human race on Earth will not be viable. I can already hear the comments. "7bn, 10bn what's the difference?" Or "in thirty years anything can happen any way I wont be around to find out, so who cares?" You see, if we compare 7.4 billion and 10 billion, the difference is now possibly less of a worry? I think we need to focus on the concept of thresholds and population density (see LHS map of UK population densities). So, if when driving, we exceed 30mph in a residential area, and we are "caught on camera", we are fined. Similarly if we exceed 70mph on the motorway, and we are spotted we may be fined.The consequences of a collision at 35mph and 75mph are of course another matter. However, I think most people will have strayed beyond 30 and 70, even if it isn't a regular thing. So we observe the rules when we are watched, but we probably accept a risk occasionally, maybe 10%? In fact a 10% margin on 10bn is insignificant in the context of population control. Or is it? During our discussion it was suggested that a fixed number like 10bn is meaningless. Does it make any difference if it is 9.9bn, or 10.1? I assume that 9.9 equally represents a crisis situation, and so we come back to perhaps a RAG or traffic light system for giving warnings? 

This then poses the question; "do we respond to warnings?" "The Met office announced two hours ago that severe flooding is expected in the area surrounding Workington: all residents are advised to leave their properties with immediate effect". My guess is that unless the Workington area has recently been hit by serious flooding, a large number of the population will "take a risk" and stay put, some will of course leave and some will ignore the warning. 

Similarly, the campaign to eliminate smoking in the UK led to a reduction in the proportion of smokers: 30% of the adult population in the UK smoked in 2000 and still 20% were smoking ten years later. Despite the warnings, the incidence of lung cancer has therefore hardly changed!  The CRUK graph on the LHS shows that the combined incidence of lung cancer among men and women (purple line) is flat, over 30 years since 1980! The evidence of a link between lung cancer is proven, but not everyone who smokes will die prematurely from lung cancer. People don't always heed warnings, and when political leaders recommend a particular course of action that requires a level of "belt tightening" it places their re-election at risk! 

So how do we persuade people that 10bn people on the planet is too many? First we need a powerful, concise narrative that creates an intuitive recognition of why moving from nearly 8bn to 10bn is tipping the world over the edge. We then need to shock people sufficiently to make them do something about it. And then there are the politicians in all of those major countries where population growth is out of control. That's the challenge; oh and don't forget your degree, by the way!