Welcome to my “World at 100” site!
Sometime in late 2010, in a bout of frustration and amidst feelings of hopelessness at media/government/corporations/Powers that Be, I decided I wanted to know how far along we (meaning human beings) really were to reaching “100 Percent,” i.e., a Perfect Planet, or about as perfect as we’re going to get it.
To my surprise, no one seemed to have what I was looking for. I poured over lots and lots of numbers — the Dow Jones, the Millennium Development Goals, the Bhutan “Happiness Index,” and many others — but there was nothing out there that included all of the elements I wanted to know about in just one Number. I very much want to wake up in the morning, and see that Number, and go, “Hey, that’s great, we’re up by 1.2%!”
After much more looking, I gave up and, with some trepidation, decided to create my own index of 10 major, global issues: They are:
1. Sustainability
2. Food
3. Water
4. Health
5. Education
6. Internet Access
7. Employment
8. Gender Gap
9. Peace
10. Good Governance
This is by no means a completed list. I’ve gone back and deleted/added/moved things around quite a bit. I’ve come up with various indicators to best measure the progress of each issue (which I’ll explain in future posts) and have changed/updated/discarded/added them as well. I’m also doing this for as many countries as I can. I’ve got around 175 so far but the data is incomplete for many of them.
If you want to take a look at these numbers, they’re up on Google. (Please keep in mind that this is definitely a work-in-progress!). I’ll update them as frequently as I can.
Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to let me know what you think!
Best,
Heather McC
How far along are we (meaning human beings) to reaching "100 Percent," i.e., a Perfect World (or as perfect as we can make it)? About a year ago, I decided I wanted to know and, more specifically, I wanted one Number, a percentage that I could check every day to see whether we were "up" or "down." Then I could know where we were and maybe understand a little more of what needs to be done. However, no one seems to have come up with such a Number. So I decided to make my own index of 10 major, global indicators. The worldat100 is really a journal of my search for the Number, to try to figure out where we are, and look at some of the people and organizations providing ways that could move our world closer to 100%.
World at 100 