Skip to main content

15 global challenges that cannot be addressed by any government acting alone

  The 15 Global Challenges  from t he Millennium Project, a global participatory think tank. 1. How can sustainable development be achieved for all while addressing global climate change? 2. How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict? 3. How can population growth and resources be brought into balance? 4. How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes? 5. How can decisionmaking be enhanced by integrating improved global foresight during unprecedented accelerating change? 6. How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone? 7. How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor? 8. How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune micro-organisms be reduced? 9. How can education make humanity more intelligent, knowledgeable, and wise enough to address its global challenges? 10. How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terroris

Children in Victorian Derby

In the Victorian age, factory employment concentrated the populace in manufacturing towns and cities like Derby.  Factory working girls suffered from many deficiencies: short, poorly developed, sallow cheeks, bad teeth. They were of course the mothers. Breast-feeding had declined because of the demands of factory employment and many mothers were unable to produce milk. Babies might be given the cheapest food, such as sweetened condensed milk, breeder of rickets. The poorest relied on a mixture of flour and  water, milk-like only to look at. 

The milk-like mixture of flour and water reminds me of low quality milk powder found in Anhui Province, China., which caused  so many 'big head babies' who are severe swelling in its head and body. 

The death rate is high. From the August, 1989, the local newspaper Mercury published weekly statistics of infant mortality. If we take an average of 18 sets of figures given by the end of that year, we might conclude that there were 193 infant deaths for every 1,000 live births in Derby, or a near 20 percent death-rate for young children! In the week ending 10 October the figure rose to 296, nearly 30 percent! This is surely a shocking statistic. 

The abyss between rich and poor is large and deep. Board School boys of 10 to 12 years of age were on average five inches shorter than those at private school.  They suffered rotten teeth, weak hearts, poor eyesight and hearing, and weren't tall enough to be recruited by the British army.  This was uncovered  by the outbreak of the Boer War in 1898. Four out of 10 young men in Britiain volunteering for the British army had to be turned down because their physique would not have stood the strain. For the second time in 20 years infantry regiments had to reduce their minimum height requirement to five fee, six inches less than 1880!

Earlier in Victorian times one design fault had bitter consequences for many of the male children of the poorest families. John Claudius Loudon, a Scots-born designer who had huge influence on the appearance of parks and houses, advised builders to make a feature of proud tall chimney stacks. The trouble was that they had to be cleaned and maintained and many had a bend in them that made it convenient for them to be swept by hand.  The hands involved were those of young 'climbing boys' small enough to crawl up the narrow vertical and twisting passages with brushes, scraping tender knees in doing so. 

Many children just suffered from dire  poverty and being much neglected.  In the local newspaper Mercury Borough Police Court report in December 1867, a dirty half-starved little boy of eleven, was charged with stealing three oranges from the stall in the Market-hall, that morning.  The boy had been in the habit of standing in the Market-hall, from morning till night, and if the people there gave him nothing to eat he had nothing; he had also been in a state of almost nakedness.  A Mercury report of another Borough Police Court case in June 1888, a poor girl, aged 9 was charged with begging in a street on Wednesday night. Many children had to stay in workhouse.

Further reading: Victorian Derby -- A portrait of life in a 19th-century manufacturing townby Harry Butterton, Published by Breedon Books Publishing, 2006.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

coat-of-arms

Heraldry probably began with the knights in armour. When wearing a helmet in battle or in tournaments a knight could not be recognised; so he used symbols to decorate his shield and surcoat. The surcoat was the loose garment worn over the armour to protect it from rain or hot sun and actually was the "coat-of-arms"; it was decorated on the front and back with the same device as on the shield. The correct expression for entire design is an achievement . An achievement consists of the shield, helmet, rest, wreath, mantling and motto. These are the main parts. To them can be added supporters and a compartment. In the centre is the most important part, the shield . The surface of the shield is called the field  and on it the colourful charges are placed. The shield is called the arms or coat-of-arms  and can be drawn in any shape - in an upright position or slanting, which is the position it would fall into if hung on a peg. In Heraldry it slants to dexter. The helmet denot

You can find your Wireless Network Key on Virgin Media Wireless Router

We have a new netbook computer, and don't know where to find network key, which is needed to setup wireless connection. A network key may also be called WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) key or WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) key. A wireless network key is a security feature that prevents unauthorized users from accessing a wireless network. An unprotected network is an unlocked virtual door, anybody within range can piggyback on the network undetected. I use Virgin media broadband with a Virgin media wireless router, this router has a WPA key taped on the router, that WPA key is an English word consisting of 10 letters. To tape network key on the router is a good idea, because we may never lose or forget a wireless network key as long as we possess the router.

The Meaning of Derby City Council Logo

Derby City Logo The logo of Derby City Council looks quite abstract and modern. I wonder what's the meaning of it? The lower-left part of the logo looks like a snail (or the initial letter D in Derby?), the upper-right part seems a river, (Derwent river?) these two parts are connected by a straight line at the bottom. I did some searches on the web trying to find out the true meaning of Derby City Council logo, but without success. So, I wrote to tourist information, and got the answer from Michael: The Logo is a representation of two of Derby's oldest emblems, one being a ram the other a buck (deer). Obviously the logo is a modern interpretation of these two figures so it is not obvious unless you know what to look for. Most people do seem to agree with you that it looks like a snail however. Ram! the curly horn of ram looks like a snail indeed. The ram and the deer are from coat of arms of City of Derby, In this coats of arms, we can see the deers both in shield (arm