Between 2000 and today, one billion people (one-eighth of the world’s population) escaped poverty. The life span of the average global citizen has doubled in the past century. In developed countries, the proportion of government spending on social projects such as education and relief for the poor rose from under 2% at the start of the 20th century to an average of 22% today. While deforestation makes headlines, 36 countries, including India and China, had more trees in 2022 than they did in 2002. The world’s wealth has tripled in the past 33 years. From 1921 to today, US traffic accident fatalities have fallen twenty-four fold. Accidental deaths from all other causes have fallen as well. For the world as a whole, human rights have improved over the past 70 years. Google searches for homophobic, racist, and misogynistic terms have decreased by at least 80% since 2004. Despite horrific wars, each of the past 5 centuries has been more peaceful than the one that preceded it. Since 1909, Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scores have been rising in all parts of the world by an average of 3 points per decade. From 1960 through today, the American poverty rate, measured by income, has fallen by more than half. World carbon emissions per dollar of GDP have dropped by over 50% in the past 50 years. Child labor, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and domestic violence have all been declining globally. The proportion of the world’s people without access to clean air and water has roughly halved in a decade | |