Sunday, November 01, 2009

fledgeling 2, statistics, trolley



Posted by PicasaOne of the pigeons which fledged the other day landed on our door step, from where it progressed to the garden gate.
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With so much opinion floating around, there is something safe and reassuring about statistics.Despite, that is, what they say about lies and damn lies. Today's paper is full of statistics. One set that intrigues me concerns a new cruise liner called Oasis of the Seas. It is reputed to be the biggest cruise ship in the world, a floating hell as far as I am concerned, and no less fascinating for being so. It has 16 decks stacked one on the other . It has room for 6, 300 passengers and 2,100 crew. It requires 630,000 gallons of paint and uses 3,300 miles of electric cable. To fill its six swimming pools requires 2,300 tons of water.
In the same paper I read that 51 pr cent of global greenhouse gas emissions are from livestock and that 26 per cent of the world's land is used for grazing cattle. Fifty billion livestock are reared every year.
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Outside Sainsbury's this morning, where last night's wind is still blowing and the rain is streaming down, the rows of shopping trolleys have accumulated a random selection of dead and sodden leaves.

2 comments:

marja-leena said...

Oh, I was reading about that ship the other day too! It was built in Finland. Not to my style, I admit, for I prefer something smaller and less posh.

Unknown said...

I can't imagine anything worse than bein "on holiday" on one of those things!