Reasons to be Cheerful

Many people think that the world is getting worse. But many people are wrong. Yes, there’s Climate Change, the threat from nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, terrorism, rogue asteroids, super-volcanos, antibiotic resistance, solar flares, future pandemics, AI and perhaps robot uprisings and Prince Harry to worry about. Granted, 2020/21 were terrible years, and 2022 isn’t looking much better either, but things will improve. If we measure our current woes against former eras, we should surely be able to collectively collect enough energy and imagination to make it through to the other side.

1. Life expectancy

During the first industrial revolution, people in Europe generally died before they were 40 years old. Many died before they were 35. Now the average is almost twice that at around 70-75 rising to 80+ in some nations. And women don’t routinely die during childbirth these days either.

2. Infant mortality

100 years ago, childbirth was a hugely risky undertaking. Even if the mother made it through unharmed, around 10% of infants, even in relatively wealthy countries such as the UK and US, didn’t. Even 50 years ago, 2 in 3 parents had a child die before its 5th birthday.?

3. Income inequality and poverty

There is still much work to be done with regard to inequality, especially inequality within countries, but the trend is in the right direction. Thanks to extraordinary economic gains, especially in China and India, about half the world can now be described as having middle-class living standards. At a UN Summit in 2000, countries around the world pledged to halve extreme poverty by 2015. The goal was achieved 5-years ahead of schedule, in 2010.

4. Democracy.

OK, there are worrying signs, not only in China and Russia, but in countries such as Hungary and Poland too. Even the US is showing a few red flags at the moment. Nevertheless, throughout most of human history most people lived under oppressive, authoritarian, non-democratic control. Now the figure is around 50% (with 90% of those still under authoritarian control living in China). This figure has been on an upward trend since the mid-1970s.

5. The world is a safer place

At least two of the world’s superpowers have been at war with each other at least 50% of the time since the year 1500. The early and middle parts of the 20th Century were especially nasty in terms of conflict, but since then a more stable international order has emerged. With the exceptions of Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia, there hasn’t been a war in Europe for three generations and while countries constantly bicker with each other, they rarely fight, at least in the conventional sense. Even in gun-obsessed America, homicide rates have dropped precipitously versus a few decades ago (just compare New York City now with the 1970s). But it’s not just wars and murder. Over the last 100-years or so, it’s become 96% safer to travel in a car, 99% safer to get on-board an aeroplane, 95% safer to go to work and it’s 89% less likely that you will be the victim of a natural disaster.

6. Cleaner water, cleaner energy and cleaner air

Too many people in the world still don’t have access to clean water or proper sanitation, but around 300,000 people per day do gain access to clean water with a further 325,000 per day gaining electrical power for the first time. Meanwhile, clean energy is getting cheaper, more cost-effective. Air quality remains an issue, especially in eastern mega-cities, but air pollutant concentrations and emissions have fallen significantly since 1970. The combined emissions of six criteria pollutants monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency in the US have fallen by 71% over this period. Toxic air releases meanwhile are down 56%, lead concentrations are down 99% and carbon monoxide levels are down 77% since 1990.

7. Medical marvels

Yes obesity is a huge problem, but the number of people being disfigured by leprosy or blinded by trachoma has declined significantly. Since 1990, the lives of over 100 million children have been saved by vaccinations alongside other simple measures ranging from proper breast feeding to effective diarrhoea treatment. We’ve more or less eradicated measles, mumps, rubella, lymphatic filariasis, guinea worm, river worm (onchocerciasis) and smallpox. We’ve also come close to eradicating Polio (down 99% since 1988), while HIV/AIDS infections have fallen globally by 35% since 2000 while deaths have declined by 42% since 2006. Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2015 we halved the global death rate for Malaria. This disease, which used to kill around 2 million people each and every year, is on the way to extinction.

8. Literacy

A recently as 1960, the majority of human beings were illiterate and lived in abject squalor. Now as few as 15% remain illiterate (and only 10% live in extreme poverty). In another 10-20 years, both of these deprivations could be a distant memory. The global ratio of male to female literacy has improved too, moving from 59% in 1970 to 99% in 2010.

9. Women in education and employment

The number of women (aged 16-64) in employment in the UK stands at around 76%. Back in 1971 this figure was 52%. The Economist magazine had even equated the economic impact of increased female participation in the global workforce with the economic impact of the internet. There are many more women in education too and globally, between 1980 and 2008, the gender gap narrowed from 32% to 26%.?Gender barriers remain, but the world is moving in the right direction. (And don’t forget that throughout most of recorded history, women were more or less regarded as property owned by men and did not even have the right to buy a house or vote).

10. Sex, race and tolerance

Cast your mind (or dusty text books) back to the US in 1950. A paragon of development and progress, which Winston Churchill described as standing “at the summit of the world”, North America still had racial segregation, McCarthyism and polio, interracial marriage was illegal and so too were gay sex and birth control. There was also anxiety about total nuclear annihilation (still present, but now far less probable). It seems that we’ve always had something to worry about.