Welcome to the final Just One Thing of 2022. The JOT team is taking a break to ring in the new year, hoping that the year is one to celebrate for all of us.
Seeing as this our last dispatch for the year, I thought it might be the perfect opportunity to look back at some numbers from last year. Unlike made-up statistics and Twitter polls, what I’m sharing today are real stats about the year gone past.
This is the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) annual statistics report, the Statistical Yearbook 2022. Available in multiple formats (I recommend the interactive digital version), this publication breaks down all the various data from the year.Â
Like the fact that average temperatures in 2021 were more than 1.4°C warmer than between 1951 and 1980. Or that cattle emit 50 times more carbon dioxide than chickens. Or that global food exports have risen to $1.42 trillion.Â
For more data like this, I encourage you to spend the rest of the year poring through the yearbook. Who knows, this might be the reading that lands you a jackpot at your next quiz competition.
Till we meet again in 2023.
Baaa.