Infographic: Apparently… we’re full?
Click to view full infographic: Apparently... we're full?
In a country inhabited by both the oldest documented living culture and a population that collectively speaks more than 200 languages – the growing and vocal undertones of racism are alarming.
Australia’s national anthem includes the line we’ve boundless plains to share. Is that correct, or are we really ‘full’?
The graphics are compelling and provide a clear answer.
We have been conservative in our translation of the statistics, using a “population:habitable area” ratio rather than a “population:land mass” ratio. The University of Wollongong conservatively estimates that the habitable area of our vast continent (Australia) is only 10%, even so we are we are only 1.7% ‘full’.
This idea was inspired by GOOD magazine – a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits making a magazine, videos, and events ‘for people who give a damn’. Each week GOOD, in collaboration with a design studio, produces a Transparency – an infographic that represents important issues and research in an accessible visual format.
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Apparently… we’re full? [PDF 1.0MB]
Transparency: Apparently we’re full? is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
Just a note that under “Country Area” heading it states that Aus and USA are both the 3rd largest country in the world.
Might want to fix that up.
Cheers
J
Well spotted! That has been corrected.
thanks.
aleem
great poster human/aleem! just wondering what the sources for the statistics are? can’t find where the footnotes go.
Nice… love the infographic. I’ve always enjoyed the GOOD ones and its great to have something with an Australian perspective. Keep them coming!
thanks for the feedback Elliott.
good question/point – we deliberated over the references and decided to keep it clean and simple. But maybe, in hindsight, we should have included them.
To answer your question:
* General stats of land mass and population are from wikipedia (but also checked against other sources).
* The “habitable area” stats are from various sources. The Australian habitable area stat is from University of Wollongong.
* USA habitable stats are from the National Park Service.
* Republic of Korea stat was from http://www.dfat.gov.au and Australia Korea Buisness Council
We’ve tried to err as much as possible on the side of conservatism to ensure that, should they be challenged, it could only be argued that the ‘bottles’ may be even emptier than we’ve indicated.
Just in keeping the dialogue open… any thoughts on this commentary from Andrew McNamara in relation to environmental sustainability?
http://www.brisinst.org.au/issue-details.php?article_id=545
It’s an interesting debate.
But it’s a pointless policy debate if we can’t legislate basic changes to how we operate as community, industry and society. The issue, in my opinion, is less about population growth and more about:
+ development and social planning policy and practice
+ industry regulation and changes
+ changes to economic structures
There are many more countries with far higher population densities than Australia, who are living far more sustainably.
Population growth is a moot point if we can’t get basic practices right.
What would we be containing our population for? A continuing path of destruction?
Keep in mind that this Transparency is also a response to bigotry and racism and not intelligent debate.
Not that we can’t have intelligent debate around it…
Great infographic and excellent point. Love it
Just a quick suggestion – having the labels on the right side of the bars makes it appear that the label applies to the bottle on the right of the label, rather than the left. Took me a few glances to work out how it fit together…
Regards, Grant
Great infographic!
Coming from the Netherlands, I always wondered about the claim that Australia is “full”. Here’s another way to look at it. If Australia had the same population density as the Netherlands – and taking Australia’s ~10% habitable area into account – the country would have approximately 360 million people… So it’s all a matter of perspective.
Cheers,
Marc