Haiti is no big deal.
SocietyLatest estimates suggest that 200,000 people died in the Haiti earthquake, 7 days ago. The world population increases by 200,000 people in just 1 day.
So on the plus side, we’re still up 1,200,000 people in the past week. On the downside, of those newcomers
- 200,000 will be malnourished
- 400,000 won’t have access to a safe water supply
- 600,000 will be born into poverty
100,000 people die each day from the effects of malnutrion and they’re not getting air-dropped ready meals, or £multi-million Tweetathons.
Haiti is not an extraordinary tragedy. It’s just a fraction of daily tragedy all bunched up in one place.
My point is NOT that Haiti is no big deal, I just wanted an attention grabbing headline. My concern is that the staccato fits of empathy and cash are mainly spent curing the symptom and not the problem, but at least it makes us feel better until the cameras are pointed somewhere else and we can go back ignoring the fact that the world is so colossally fucked up.
