Re: Politically Correct Description of the Third World

[Bob Henderson]

Erik asked:
> On Tue, Jan 30, 2001 at 07:47:03AM -0800, Doug Pensinger wrote:
> > Erik Reuter wrote:
> > > On Tue, Jan 30, 2001 at 06:56:07PM +1300, Bob Henderson wrote:
> > > > and availability of basic health care was a factor(:>). And why is
> > > > the richest country with 4% of the world popln consuming 26% of the
> > > > world's resources ranked behind Canada and Norway?
> > > Was this statistic on the cited website?

No. I should have said 26% of the world's oil resources.
                                                                        ^^
> > >  Where does this number come
> > > from?

Memory. Widely reported from the December climate conference at The Hague.

snip
> > Figures from the field listings section of the factbook. I calculated
the
> > percentages.
> Thanks for the figures. However, if that is Bob's source, he seriously
> misquoted. Energy consumption does not equal world's resources.  I'm
> not claiming that Bob is wrong, but these figures do not support his
> statement.

Given the qualifications on the purpose and the usefulness of the UN HDI by
one of its authors, the rankings have little meaning anyway so a perfect Bob
would have moved on after the comment about Cuba's commonly regarded third
world status being belied by its position in the index and the possibility
of further improvement in "social" rank if availability of basic health care
was included.
The 4% population, 26% consumption of the world's (oil) resources
description of the US was simply to emphasise its position as the *richest*
country

Bob.