[207] Auto Worker Salaries Around the World

In selected countries, industrial workers earn salaries indicated by white lines leading to a scale of salaries in US dollars. Their counterparts in the automotive industry earn significantly more, as represented by the black lines leading to higher relative levels. At $37.68per hour, German car workers earned more in 1997 than any other industrial or automotive workers in the survey did.

[199] Auto Corporations vs. Countries (revision)

Car companies are among the largest and most powerful companies of the world, rivaling entire states in economic might. Countries and groups of countries are re-named with companies whose gross income equals their GDP in 1999.

[193] Fuel Consumers

The countries with the highest gasoline consumption are positioned along a North-South (higher-lower) scale.

[191] Carless Countries

Many industrialized nations have about half as many cars as citizens. Green overlaid countries have the least number of cars per capita: up to 10,000 inhabitants would have to share a single motor vehicle.

[177] Fuel Sources, Consumption, and Prices (cmyk+rgb)

(cmyk)
Segments originating at the South Pole (1971) represent changing proportions of fuel sources and usage up until 1996 (North Pole).

[173] Life Carbon Reserves

[171] Infant Mortality

Infant mortality is a good indicator of a population's well-being. In areas shaded dark red, one out of five children does not live beyond the age of five. In white areas, the mortality is less than 2%.

[170] Solar System

This globe representing the size of the sun shows the respective size of the solar system's planets. Most planets in other solar systems have been just too small to be detected with current technology .
The planets discovered so far are huge: up to 11 times the size of Jupiter. Smaller ones, the size of earth, are not expected to be found in the near future, even though there are no doubts that they exist.

[169] Soil Degradation

Soil degradation is brought on by several factors, mostly predisposition for desertification, acid rain, need for fuelwood and food needs which are beyond the soil's capacity to support. This globe shows only areas where the population’s food needs lead to overexploitation and subsequently to soil degradation.

[167] Island Nations

[166] Labor Migration

This world is divided into richer and poorer countries. Highlighted countries are considered rich, as the personal income averages more than US $2,500/year. Anybody making less is part of the rest, the poor. Accordingly, there is a migration from poorer to richer countries. Inconsistent definitions of labor migration, and the untrackable nature of illegal migration has resulted in a scarcity of data on the subject. Arrows shown represent flows of at least 50,000 migrants in a given year between 1986 and 2003 as noted by the International Labor Organization.

[166-3] Labor Migration

[165] Historical Diasporas

[163] Moody’s Rating 1999

Moody's Investor Service as well as Standard and Poor rate not only corporations but countries as well. Most institutional investment firms have rules prohibiting them from buying government bonds issued by countries with a low rating. Only blue-chip (Aaa=light color) and high to medium grade countries (Aa-Baa3=dark) are considered investment grades, all other countries (Ba1 to C) do not even show up on the investors' radar.

[163-3] Moody’s Rating

Moody's Investor Service as well as Standard and Poor rate not only corporations but sovereigns, i.e. countries, as well. Most institutional investment firms have rules prohibiting them from buying government bonds issued by countries with a low, speculation-grade rating. Only blue-chip (Aaa=light color) and high to medium grade countries (Aa-Baa3=dark) are considered investment grades, all other countries (Ba1 to C) therefore do not even show up on the investors' radar.

[162] Nuclear Energy Dependency

Violet parts of a given country represent the proportional dependency on atomic energy. The remainder (yellow) represents the reliance on conventional energy sources.

[158] Global Warming and Cooling

1965 -1995 data: temperature changes over a 30-year period. Areas that experienced a temperature increase of up to 0.5ºC are white. Areas in which the temperature increased 0.6º - 1.0ºC are pink, and temperature increases of 1,1º - 1.5ºC are red. All areas in which the temperature decreased are shown in blue, equally bracketed.

[154] Refugee (Republic) Network

Refugees account for 1% of the world population. Most are parked in UN camps without awareness or knowledge of each other’s existence. Connecting these refugee camps would result in this refugee net. A Refugee Republic could be a trans-global, experimental, supra-territorial state for refugees to represent themselves worldwide. Implementing the idea of an open society and the ideals represented by the UN, it could become a model for other nations.

[152] AIDS Impact on Regions 1997

UNAIDS/WHO estimated a 7% decrease in North American cases and an estimated 18% increase in Sub-Saharan Africa in comparison with figures recorded in 1996. Africa already suffers by far the greatest impact of AIDS with 25 - 28 million affected.

[150] Airplane Disasters

Most of the major airplane disasters occurred in the Northern Hemisphere. Shown are crashes with more than 150 victims. Since 1999 this number has increase, yet at a lesser pace

[145] Top High Credit Risk Emerging Markets [cmyk]

Being the riskiest country, Russia scores 85 on a scale of 100. The national credit risk is based on economic and political factors. Israel and Indonesia, the countries shown with the least risk, still have a factor of 40.