full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Danny Dorling: Maps that show us who we are (not just where we are)

Unscramble the Blue Letters

And we also know about what we do so terribly bdlay nowadays. You will have seen this map of the world before. This is the map pcerdoud by taking satellite images, if you rbmeemer those satellites around the pleant in the very first slide I showed, and producing an image of what the Earth looks like at night. When you normally see that map, on a nraoml map, the kind of map that most of you will be used to, you think you are seeing a map of where people live. Where the lights are shining up is where ploepe live. But here, on this image of the world, remember we've stretched the map again. Everywhere has the same density of people on this map. If an area doesn't have people, we've shrunk it away to make it disappear. So we're showing everybody with equal prominence. Now, the lights no longer show you where people are, because people are everywhere. Now the lights on the map, the lights in London, the lights in Cairo, the lights in Tokyo, the lights on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, the lthgis show you where people live who are so profligate with eergny that they can aofrfd to spend money powering lights to shine up into the sky, so sitaetells can draw an image like this. And the areas that are dark on the map are either areas where people do not have aseccs to that much energy, or areas where people do, but they have lenerad to stop shining the light up into the sky. And if I could show you this map animated over time, you would see that Tokyo has actually become darker, because ever since the tsunami in Japan, jpaan has had to rely on a quarter less electricity because it turned the nlucaer power stations off. And the wrlod didn't end. You just shone less light up into the sky.

Open Cloze

And we also know about what we do so terribly _____ nowadays. You will have seen this map of the world before. This is the map ________ by taking satellite images, if you ________ those satellites around the ______ in the very first slide I showed, and producing an image of what the Earth looks like at night. When you normally see that map, on a ______ map, the kind of map that most of you will be used to, you think you are seeing a map of where people live. Where the lights are shining up is where ______ live. But here, on this image of the world, remember we've stretched the map again. Everywhere has the same density of people on this map. If an area doesn't have people, we've shrunk it away to make it disappear. So we're showing everybody with equal prominence. Now, the lights no longer show you where people are, because people are everywhere. Now the lights on the map, the lights in London, the lights in Cairo, the lights in Tokyo, the lights on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, the ______ show you where people live who are so profligate with ______ that they can ______ to spend money powering lights to shine up into the sky, so __________ can draw an image like this. And the areas that are dark on the map are either areas where people do not have ______ to that much energy, or areas where people do, but they have _______ to stop shining the light up into the sky. And if I could show you this map animated over time, you would see that Tokyo has actually become darker, because ever since the tsunami in Japan, _____ has had to rely on a quarter less electricity because it turned the _______ power stations off. And the _____ didn't end. You just shone less light up into the sky.

Solution

  1. lights
  2. japan
  3. afford
  4. badly
  5. produced
  6. people
  7. energy
  8. nuclear
  9. planet
  10. access
  11. learned
  12. normal
  13. remember
  14. satellites
  15. world

Original Text

And we also know about what we do so terribly badly nowadays. You will have seen this map of the world before. This is the map produced by taking satellite images, if you remember those satellites around the planet in the very first slide I showed, and producing an image of what the Earth looks like at night. When you normally see that map, on a normal map, the kind of map that most of you will be used to, you think you are seeing a map of where people live. Where the lights are shining up is where people live. But here, on this image of the world, remember we've stretched the map again. Everywhere has the same density of people on this map. If an area doesn't have people, we've shrunk it away to make it disappear. So we're showing everybody with equal prominence. Now, the lights no longer show you where people are, because people are everywhere. Now the lights on the map, the lights in London, the lights in Cairo, the lights in Tokyo, the lights on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, the lights show you where people live who are so profligate with energy that they can afford to spend money powering lights to shine up into the sky, so satellites can draw an image like this. And the areas that are dark on the map are either areas where people do not have access to that much energy, or areas where people do, but they have learned to stop shining the light up into the sky. And if I could show you this map animated over time, you would see that Tokyo has actually become darker, because ever since the tsunami in Japan, Japan has had to rely on a quarter less electricity because it turned the nuclear power stations off. And the world didn't end. You just shone less light up into the sky.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
population growth 4
good news 4
people live 3
incredible rate 2
growth began 2
billion people 2
news stories 2
news story 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
good news stories 2
good news story 2

Important Words

  1. access
  2. afford
  3. animated
  4. area
  5. areas
  6. badly
  7. cairo
  8. dark
  9. darker
  10. density
  11. disappear
  12. draw
  13. earth
  14. eastern
  15. electricity
  16. energy
  17. equal
  18. image
  19. images
  20. japan
  21. kind
  22. learned
  23. light
  24. lights
  25. live
  26. london
  27. longer
  28. map
  29. money
  30. night
  31. normal
  32. nowadays
  33. nuclear
  34. people
  35. planet
  36. power
  37. powering
  38. produced
  39. producing
  40. profligate
  41. prominence
  42. quarter
  43. rely
  44. remember
  45. satellite
  46. satellites
  47. seaboard
  48. shine
  49. shining
  50. shone
  51. show
  52. showed
  53. showing
  54. shrunk
  55. sky
  56. slide
  57. spend
  58. states
  59. stations
  60. stop
  61. stretched
  62. terribly
  63. time
  64. tokyo
  65. tsunami
  66. turned
  67. united
  68. world