I found a fascinating resource online that everyone should check out. It’s a world clock that displays statistics on things like world population, deaths, oil consumption, and infectious diseases. The numbers are generated using data from a variety of sources. While the actual numbers cannot be precise down to the second as they are displayed on the clock, what is interesting is the rapid rate of change.

After watching the numbers grow for a few minutes I began to see the world in a different way. We often can’t wrap our mind around the really big numbers but we need to be reminded about the issues that are facing our world today. For example, as many as 3,000 people have died so far today because of AIDS, 2,000 because of Diarrhea (caused often from the lack of clean water), 1,800 from Tuberculosis (a preventable disease)…and that’s just at 9:30 AM when I’m writing this!

Take a few minutes to look at the clock. Click the buttons along the top to see the numbers for this month, week, day or minute by minute. It will give you a new perspective on the world we live in.