Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know About the World

by Vaclav Smil

regional high fertilities guarantee that nearly 75 percent of all births during the 50 years between 2020 and 2070 will be in Africa.

Ray Kurzweil, Google’s chief futurist, says that if you can just hang on until 2029, medical advances will start to “add one additional year, every year, to your life expectancy.

Without the low operating costs, high efficiency, high reliability, and great durability of diesel engines, it would have been impossible to reach the extent of globalization that now defines the modern economy.

For a long time to come—until all energies used to produce wind turbines and photovoltaic cells come from renewable energy sources—modern civilization will remain fundamentally dependent on fossil fuels.

Eliminating kerosene-based jet fuel will be one of the greatest challenges in creating a world without carbon emissions.

Forty years ago, more than half of French adults were drinking wine nearly every day, but the share of all adults who drink wine regularly is now just 16 percent.