Briefly ignoring the economic aspect of this, we have to stop using countries as reference points against the whole world. It's like when I'm told "Bad thing X happened, and affected an area the size of Belgium. A WHOLE COUNTRY".
What do I do with this information? Sure, Belgium is big, but is it like, big? It turns out that it's... does the math... roughly 0.00006 times the total area of the Earth. That doesn't sound big. And if bad thing X happens every year, it would take more than 16000 years to cover the Earth, or 800 if we say 95% of the Earth is water anyway. That timeline also sounds manageable.
I'm not trying to spin disaster positively, but will someone please just start using "affected area / total potential area" or something, instead of yardsticks and football fields.
What do I do with this information? Sure, Belgium is big, but is it like, big? It turns out that it's... does the math... roughly 0.00006 times the total area of the Earth. That doesn't sound big. And if bad thing X happens every year, it would take more than 16000 years to cover the Earth, or 800 if we say 95% of the Earth is water anyway. That timeline also sounds manageable.
I'm not trying to spin disaster positively, but will someone please just start using "affected area / total potential area" or something, instead of yardsticks and football fields.