Thursday, March 01, 2007

What Does Economic Freedom Look Like at Night?

What does economic freedom look like at night from a NASA satellite?

See the fascinating NASA Earth night photograph from Aug 27, 2001 (click to enlarge). In Europe, it's easy to spot London, Paris, Stockholm, Madrid and Vienna. Check out Israel compared to the rest of the Arab countries. Note the Nile River and the rest of the "Dark Continent." After the Nile, the lights don't come on again until Johannesburg. From Strange Cosmos, via Tom McMahon.

According to the 2007 Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom of the World in Five Regions, the economic freedom of Sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest in the world, and the economic freedom of Europe is the second highest in the world, just slightly behind the Americas.

2 Comments:

At 3/02/2007 6:47 AM, Blogger Tim Worstall said...

Just as an aside, some 50% of the light visible on that map comes from our product.
Most of it is street and outside lights....which are metal halide and sodium bulbs, which use scandium to alter the spectrum emitted and we, well, in the day job we supply the (that's the, not some of) scandium used by the light bulb industry and have done since the mid 1990s.
Not much of a claim to fame but the only one we've got.

 
At 3/02/2007 5:28 PM, Blogger scrilla said...

the worst part is that the lack of freedom and prosperity in those areas is supported by billions in corrupt loans from leftist organizations like the UN, IMF, World Bank, etc.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home