Numbers don't lie : 71 stories to help us understand the modern world / Vaclav Smil.
"Vaclav Smil's mission is to make facts matter. An environmental scientist, policy analyst, and a hugely prolific author, he is Bill Gates' go-to guy for making sense of our world. In Numbers Don't Lie, Smil answers questions such as: What's worse for the environment--your c...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other title: | Numbers do not lie |
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[New York, New York] :
Penguin Books,
2021.
|
| Subjects: |
Table of Contents:
- People : The Inhabitants of Our World. What happens when we have fewer children?
- The best indicator of quality of life? : Try infant mortality
- The best return on investment : vaccination
- Why it's difficult to predict how bad a pandemic will be while it is happening
- Growing taller
- Is life expectancy finally topping out?
- How sweating improved hunting
- How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?
- Why unemployment figures do not tell the whole story
- What makes people happy?
- The rise of megacities
- Countries : Nations in the Age of Globalization. The First World War's extended tragedies
- Is the US really exceptional?
- Why Europe should be more pleased with itself
- Brexit : realities that matter most will not change
- Concerns about Japan's future
- How far can China go?
- India vs. China
- Why manufacturing remains important
- Russia and the USA : how things never change
- Receding empires : nothing new under the sun
- Machines, Designs, Devices : Inventions That Made Our Modern World. How the 1880s created our modern world
- How electric motors power modern civilization
- Transformers - the unsung silent, passive devices
- Why you shouldn't write diesel off just yet
- Capturing motion - from horses to electrons
- From the phonograph to streaming
- Inventing integrated circuits
- Moore's Curse : why technical progress takes longer than you think
- The rise of data : too much too fast
- Being realistic about innovation
- Fuels and Electricity : Energizing Our Societies. Why gas turbines are the best choice
- Nuclear electricity - an unfulfilled promise
- Why you need fossil fuels to get electricity from wind
- How big can a wind turbine be?
- The slow rise of photovoltaics
- Why sunlight is still best
- Why we need bigger batteries
- Why electric container ships are a hard sail
- The real cost of electricity
- The inevitably slow pace of energy transitions
- Transport : How We Get Around. Shrinking the journey across the Atlantic
- Engines are older than bicycles!
- The surprising story of inflatable tires
- When did the age of the car begin?
- Modern cars have a terrible weight-to-payload ratio
- Why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet)
- When did the jet age begin?
- Why kerosene is king
- How safe is flying?
- Which is more energy efficient - planes, trains, or automobiles?
- Food : energizing ourselves
- The world without synthetic ammonia
- Multiplying wheat yields
- The inexcusable magnitude of global food waste
- The slow addio to the Mediterranean diet
- Bluefin tuna : on the way to etinction
- Why chicken rules
- (Not) drinking wine
- Rational meat-eating
- The Japanese diet
- Dairy products - the counter-trends
- Environment : damaging and protecting our world
- Animals vs. artifacts - which are more diverse?
- Planet of the cows
- The deaths of elephants
- Why calls for the Anthropocene era may be premature
- Concrete facts
- What's worse for the environment - your car or your phone?
- Who has better insulation?
- Triple-glazed windows : a see-through energy solution
- Improving the efficiency of household heating
- Running into carbon.