Don’t Panic: The Truth About Population

Synopsis: Documentary. Using state-of-the-art 3D graphics and the timing of a stand-up comedian, statistician Professor Hans Rosling presents a portrait of our rapidly changing world. With seven billion people already on our planet, we often look to the future with dread, but Rosling’s message is surprisingly upbeat. Almost unnoticed, we have actually begun to conquer the problems of rapid population growth and extreme poverty. Across the world, even in countries like Bangladesh, families of just two children are now the norm - meaning that within a few generations, the population explosion will be over. A smaller proportion of people now live in extreme poverty than ever before in human history and the United Nations has set a target of eradicating it altogether within a few decades. In this as-live studio event, Rosling presents a statistical tour-de-force, including his ‘ignorance survey’, which demonstrates how British university graduates would be outperformed by chimpanzees in a test of knowledge about developing countries.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Year of release: 2014
Year of production: 2013
Notes: First shown on BBC2 7 November 2013 and commissioned for THIS WORLD series. The programme won the 2015 Learning on Screen Award in the General Education Broadcast category.
Subjects: Geography; Social sciences
Keywords: developing countries; poverty; population control

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