Why these numbers can be checked
Trust is not asked for here. Each claim below points at the place where it can be checked, and the weaknesses are listed with the same care as the safeguards.
A HumanToll figure cannot be printed without its interval, scenario, run and versions; it is published only from a run that passed a backtest; its audit trail must sum to it; and anybody can report an error and read the answer in public.
What each figure stands on
No figure without its interval
The one function that prints a figure refuses to run without the run, the scenario, both ends of the interval, the grade and the versions of the method and the data.
A backtest before anything is published
The model is run for every year from 2010 on two input–output systems and five scenarios, and judged by twelve gates. A run is publishable only on a clean, recorded verdict.
An audit trail that must add up
Every figure is broken down by material, country, conflict and channel, and every breakdown must sum to the figure. If one does not, the page fails rather than rounding the difference away.
Two routes, never added
What a product is made of and the industries it comes from are two different questions. Both are shown; they are never added into one number.
A versioned method
The methodology is published before any figure and frozen versions stay addressable, so a citation always points at the method that produced it.
Licensed, credited sources
Every source is listed with its licence and the release used. Permissions a publisher gave in writing are filed with the project’s evidence.
A public corrections log
Anybody can report an error. Reports are answered in public, the rejected ones too, and an accepted correction appears on the page it corrects.
As of this page
- Published estimates: none yet.
- The latest backtest judged 140 runs: 140 publishable.
- Corrections: 0 reported, 0 answered, 0 waiting to be read.
Where the model is weakest
- Harm that cannot be attributed is left out, so every figure is a floor, not a total.
- Only production is counted. For a car, using it is very likely the larger half of its toll.
- Deaths caused indirectly by conflict — disease, hunger, displacement — are not counted.
- Injury figures follow who reported: a country that stops reporting leaves the series.
- Per euro spent, most industries cannot be told apart: the order of the monetary route is mostly noise.
- Several of the five scenarios still give the same figures, because the switches that separate them have little to act on yet.