About

Why we count

So far this year, 4,134,104 children have died before their fifth birthday, most of them from diseases we know how to prevent. In the same months we have put 35,911,735,122 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air. As you can see, both numbers are rising by the minute.

Most of us know that the planet is in trouble. But few of us feel it, because a figure in the millions or billions is just too big to picture. We are simply disconnected from it. The World Counts attempts to turn these otherwise unimaginable figures into numbers that move while we watch, in the hope that somewhere between we stop and think: what the hell are we doing?

The question underneath

In a certain way, the destruction of our planet is not likely to end - until we find our way back to loving the Earth, and life itself. We also think that love starts closer to home than most “writing about the environment” admits. Namely with how we treat ourselves. It is hard to care for a living planet while treating our own lives as something to get through.

So the question we most want to leave you with is a personal one. What am I doing? How am I actually living? What do I reach for when something feels missing, and what does that cost? A person who is at home in their own life tends to need less from the planet, and finds it harder to look away when the planet is being hurt.

These are big questions, and we don’t ask them on every page. Most of what you’ll find here is evidence: where a number comes from, what it means, and what is pushing it up or down. But the questions are the reason we bother.

Who we are

The World Counts is made by Karsten Bjerring Olsen, Esben Larsen, and Sascha Engel in Copenhagen, Denmark. We are not scientists and we don’t produce data of our own. We read the work of the agencies and researchers who do, choose the figures that show what is going on, and cite them so you can check us. How we choose and check them is explained on The data.

You can write to us at yes@theworldcounts.com. We read everything. And we would love to receive ideas on how we can improve the site.

What you’ll find here

• Earth: the state of the planet itself, its air, water, land and climate.
• Life: the animals, plants and ecosystems we share it with.
• Humanity: how many of us there are, our health, wealth, freedom, and more.
• Footprint: what we consume, burn and throw away, which drives most of the rest.
• Hope: what is getting better, and why it matters to keep the hope.