Donella Meadows published an article in 1990 called "State of the Village Report" to help people understand global population trends by mathematically reducing the world's population to a village of 1,000 people proportionally representing different countries and demographics. The article presents a hypothetical scenario where Berwick Academy, with a population of around 700, represents the entire world population of 7 billion to demonstrate statistics like population breakdowns by country, religion, wealth distribution, and more.