United Nations: Where are the best places to live?
4 Comments Published by clay November 27th, 2007 in International.United Nations-Best places to live
It is too bad to see the
I am surprised to see how low many countries are, for instance,
The island nation edged out
The U.N. Human Development Index used 2005 figures for life expectancy, educational levels and real per capita income to rank 175 nations of the world — plus Hong Kong and the Palestinian territories — for habitability. Rich, free-market economies dominated the top spots with
African countries landed at the bottom of the list, where in 10 countries, two in five children will not reach the age of 40. All 22 of the lowest ranked countries are in sub-Saharan
The disconnect between the top-ranked nation and the lowest for per capita GDP is staggering.
The index, published annually since 1990, does not include 17 countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, due to insufficient data.
Norway slipped to No. 2 this year because of new life expectancy estimates and updated figures for gross domestic product, or GDP, the report said.
U.N. officials downplayed shifts in rankings among the top contenders, including the U.S., saying that if data had been available, the United States would have been in 10th, not eighth place.
The United States gets good marks for real per capita GDP, which at $41,890 is second only to that of Luxembourg ($60,228), but fares less well on life expectancy — tied last in the top 26 countries, along with Denmark and South Korea, at 77.9 years.
Japan has the longest life expectancy at 82.3 years, and Zambians, the lowest, at 40.5.
I think it is interesting that we can simultaneously be the 12th best country to live in and the world leader. I have looked at the HDI of countries before and knew that life expectancy, economy and literacy were factors in determining a countries’ HDI value, but was interested to find that our CO2 emissions also play a role in our ranking. Not surprisingly, the US is 1st with a total of 6,045.8 MTCO2 emissions in 2004, contributing to about 20% of the world’s emissions. This number is astonishing compared to higher ranked countries like #8 Japan who had a total of 1,257.2 or first place Iceland’s 2.2. This may not constitute an energy crisis within the United States, but globally, I feel we have a problem.
This is why I think that it is even more important for us as a nation to continue to research and use alternative fuels. Little changes like energy efficient light bulbs, corn based ethanol instead of gas and mandating energy effective government facilities (proposed in one of the energy committee’s bills) can help lower our emissions, while drastic changes like outputting more hybrid cars than regular ones may be needed in the future to help push our energy usage down to a level that may not by Iceland’s 2.2, but can be less than 20% of the world’s total.
Besides this, nothing else was alarming or means for concern and I am overall happy with our score, which is a lot better than those of sub-Saharan countries so effected by famine and HIV/AIDS that their life expectancy is only 40.5, like that of Zambia’s. I can’t complain and we did beat the UK (Jolly Ho!) but it still would have been nice to place in the top ten. What these rankings mean for me are 1) I need to be even more energy conscience if I want our nation to move up and 2) I have even more reason to fulfill my dream of living out part of my life in Switzerland or France, an aspiration I can now back up with, “Well, it’s better than the United States!”
very interesting stuff to read, but i think that the life expectancy has a lot to do with the resources people have to cure disease, and what not. but i think that if people found other ways of curing disease ( which they already do) they’d live to live alot longer, and if had a way of doing checkups. if a medical facility was not available to them then this would be a great alternative for them. the greatest problem to overcome i think would be to overcome the problem that they have of medicine. im not sure but in the u.s we wouldn’t have doctors if we didnt have to be sick. so i think that theres something funny there, a lot of peoples lives are “saved” so i presume that medicine doctors, physicians , surgens all play there roll in this chess board. anyway by inviting more ways of medical and cleaner air, and environments i think people would live to be alot older. then there are those alcohol problems and drugs but thats another issue.
I would have expected that the african nations would be on the bottom because of AIDS and the constant fighting thats going on over there. Most of the countries that are listed on the are enviromentally clean nations, not involved in war, and dont really have the problems that the U.S. is facing right now. My opinion on the education is that the U.S. is not taking the right course of action with that stupid “no child left behind” law. How is that going to solve anything? It just reports test scores and imposes restriction. We need to start focusing more on putting money into schools because schools already have low budgets just look at ipoly. I think that life expectancy is down because of our healthcare programs.
These facts are actually quite interesting since most people have always thought of the United States being the best place to live and do what they want to do. Although the U.S has really been moving down on this list of other countries habitability. It seems as though we as one of the biggest nations might not be able to keep up with other foreign nations and may have to end up giving up the big thrown.
I guess it’s our pride in our own country that allows people to look past this issue and automatically consider the U.S as a never ending power that will always have control. Although we as civilians need to open our eyes and see what is really going on. Realize the true before it’s too late to do something about it. Change can only happen with us, and if people come to realize that then the United States can remain a longtime power for years to come.