According to UN-Habitat and the IPCC, urban areas are responsible for about 70% of global CO2 emissions and use a similar share of energy. Heating, cooling, transport and industry are all concentrated there. But density can also help: someone living in a compact city with good public transport often emits less getting around than someone in sprawling suburbs.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.