Numbers Don't Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know About the World (Vaclav Smil)

Is flying dangerous? 
How much do the world's cows weigh? 
And what makes people happy?
Should you trust unemployment figures? 
Is China's rise unstoppable? 
And what's worse for the environment: your car or mobile phone?
 
This book is an essential guide to understanding how numbers reveal the true state of our world, exploring a wide range of topics including energy, the environment, technology, transportation, and food production.
 
From earth's nations and inhabitants, through the fuels and foods that energize them, to the transportation and inventions of our modern world - and how all of this affects the planet itself - in Numbers Don't Lie, Professor Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge lazy thinking.
 
Packed with 'well-I-never-knew-that' information and with fascinating and unusual examples throughout, we see how it is too soon to judge shale gas, that vaccination yields the best return on investment, and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). There's a wonderful mix of science, history and wit, all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics.
 
Vaclav Smil (1943-) is a Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst whose work spans energy, environment, food, population, economics, history, and public policy. Educated at Charles University in Prague and later at Pennsylvania State University, where he earned his Ph.D. in geography, Smil emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States in 1969 following the Soviet invasion, before beginning his long academic career at the University of Manitoba in 1972. Over the decades he established himself as a leading voice on global energy systems, environmental change, and economic development, with particular attention to China.