Spaceship Earth Update
3Throughout this book, Buckminster Fuller extensively references facts about the world, past and present, and predictions for the future, yet for the most part does not cite his sources. While the task of annotating the factual references with updated information was not possible, there are a few trends so central to his worldview that providing an updated overview felt essential:
Standard of Living
5Today’s global development community distinguishes between four fundamental standards of living: ‘‘extreme poverty,’’ ‘‘moderate poverty,’’ ‘‘middle income’’ and ‘‘high income.’’ ‘‘Extreme poverty’’ is defined as the inability to ‘‘meet basic needs for survival,’’ living on less than $1 per day per person. ‘‘Moderate poverty’’ means ‘‘basic needs are just barely met,’’ living on between $1 and $2 per day per person—not the same as ‘‘relative poverty’’ in wealthy countries. ‘‘Middle income’’ indicates ‘‘incomes of a few thousand per year’’—not the same measures of ‘‘middle income’’ in wealthy countries; and ‘‘high income’’ is above that.
6 In 1981, 56% of the world’s population (2.5 of 4.4 billion) was poor: 1.5 billion in extreme poverty and 1 billion in moderate poverty. In 2001, the percentage of humanity who was poor dropped to 44% (2.7 of 6.1 billion). The good news is that, in those twenty years, the number in extreme poverty dropped from 1.5 of 4.5 billion (34%) to 1.1 of 6.1 billion (18%). Concomitantly, the number in moderate poverty Spaceship Earth Update ‘‘climbed ’’ from 1 of 4.5 billion (22%) to 1.6 of 6.1 billion (26%). And the total number who was out of poverty, using current notions of ‘‘middle income’’ and ‘‘high income,’’ grew from 44% of humanity (1.9 of 4.4 billion) in 1981 to 56% (3.4 of 6.1 billion) in 2001.
7 Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for our Time (The Penguin Press, New York, 2005),
chapter 1; and S. Chen and M. Ravallion, ‘‘How have the world’s poorest fared since the early 1980s?’’ World
Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3341, June 2004. 
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Population
9In the 20th century, the world population grew from 1.65 billion in 1900 to 6.07 billion in 2000—6.67 billion today. At the same time, the annual growth rate of world population has been steadily decelerating from its peak of 2.04% in the late sixties to 1.3% in 1999, and is predicted to continue dropping to less than 0.5% by the year 2050.
10 The United Nation’s ‘‘medium variant’’ projection is that the world population will reach 9.2 billion in 2050, and peak at 9.22 billion in 2075. Since the early 1970’s, birth rates have been declining consistently: from 4.47 children per woman to 2.55 children per woman presently. Expectations are that it will further decrease to 2 children per women by 2050—slightly less than the 2.1 children per woman replacement level. And overall, global life expectancy has steadily risen from 57 years in 1970 to 67 today.
11 ‘‘World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, Highlights’’ (United Nations, New York, 2007) and ‘‘World Population to 2300’’ (United Nations, New York, 2004).
Literacy
14Literacy, as now defined by the global development community, is the population, 15 and older,
who can read and write. In 2005, 82% (totaling 3.8 billion) were literate; this increased from 63%
in 1970 (totaling 1.5 billion). Of those who were not literate in 2005, 64% were women. Of the 1.3
billion people under the age of 15, 103 million were not in primary or secondary school. UNESCO
Institute for Statistics, https://www.uis.unesco.org/en/stats/statistics/literacy2000.htm (accessed May 2, 2008).
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