By the numbers

There are two kinds of people in the world: numbers people and word people.
I am of the latter ilk, to me math is scarier than spiders; at least spiders I understand.
But today I noticed an interesting numerical pattern in the news;
In the United States this past year:
The murder rate rose by 2%
Greenhouse-gas emissions grew by 2%
Teenagers are smoking 2% less
Teenager are using alcohol 2% less
But, the rate of teenagers using legal controlled substances like Oxycontin and Ambien rose by 5%.
Also, there is a $39.7 billion deficit reduction package in the house with a Pentagon budget provision for oil drilling in Alaska, but $50 million to keep peacekeepers in Dafur was rejected.
Today there is a transit strike and are no city buses or trains running in NYC. Stinky drives, luckily.
On TV this AM there were droves of maniacal Brooklynites walking and biking over the Brooklyn Bridge in 22 degree very windy weather. The span itself is a mile long and so high that even in August it's cold up there. The Red Cross was giving out coffee!  New Yorkers, insane and indomitable really do pull together in the clutch, we are gloriously united in adversity (if you have a car breakdown scores of passersby will stop to commiserate and make redundant suggestions) but we also have a short attention span and it's only a matter of time before all this good-naturedness dissolves into riots and road rage. I imagine vigilante groups will be formed to go after MTA workers. They've already restricted our borders!
More numbers, from a letter written to today’s ScienceTimes: according to the World Health Org, by the year 2030 as many as 1.2 billion women worldwide will have reached the age of 50 when hot flashes occur. The writer asks, "May one infer that hot flashes will become a factor in global warming?"  Uh oh. You youngins' better take note! Maybe activism will be called for; help the hot, warm down the womanly, pad the postmenopausal, cool the crone.
We will not be refrigerated!