A photographer compares statistics about American consumption with photographs to help us understand just how much, how big, or how tragic this just might be.
The talk dates from 2008, but I find it fitting for today. In my travels, I am constantly explaining to speakers of French, Spanish and Portuguese just what a “trillion” dollars means. Their language usually stops at billion, and must only proceed to thousand billion, which is instantly nonsensical. To properly understand our future, we must wrap our collective heads around our true impact.