Numbers Don't Lie

Vaclav Smil is my favorite author… Numbers Don't Lie takes everything that makes his writing great and boils it down into an easy-to-read format. I unabashedly recommend this book to anyone who loves learning.--Bill Gates GatesNotes. From the author of How the World Really Works 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.. Vaclav Smil's mission is to make facts matter. An environmental scientist policy analyst and a hugely prolific author he is Bill Gates' go-to guy for making sense of our world. In Numbers Don't Lie Smil answers questions such as: What's worse for the environment--your car or your phone? How much do the world's cows weigh (and what does it matter)? And what makes people happy? . From data about our societies and populations through measures of the fuels and foods that energize them to the impact of transportation and inventions of our modern world--and how all of this affects the planet itself--in Numbers Don't Lie Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge conventional thinking. Packed with fascinating information and memorable examples Numbers Don't Lie reveals how the US is leading a rising worldwide trend in chicken consumption that vaccination yields the best return on investment and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). Urgent and essential with a mix of science history and wit--all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics--Numbers Don't Lie inspires readers to interrogate what they take to be true.