We are living in the world of abundance! Be grateful and appreciate what we have!
Terrorism, climate change, economic crisis, population explosion, food shortages, poverty, pandemic - the world goes to an end!
Really? Not exactly!
If we will look at statistic, the industrialised world has never been safer. We live longer, wealthier, healthier, we have access to knowledge as never before and our access to goods and services is massive!
Our future is brighter than our brains and media are thinking. I will give you some bullet points about that. Not couple of bullet points, let's start from.... well - 30-ish facts? Just for the beginning!
1. 5,54 billion people are now living in middle income countries. 5.54B out of ar. 7.753B which is over 71%!
2. Hunger is falling
Below map shows changes to the Global Hunger Index — a measure of undernutrition calculated by the International Food Policy Research Institute — between 2000 and 2017. In countries marked red, hunger has increased. In countries marked orange or tan, it’s decreased, and in countries marked green it’s decreased by one half or more. It’s encouraging to see how much of the globe is orange, tan, or green, and especially encouraging that a few extremely populous countries like China and Brazil fall into the green category.
2. During the last 20 years the number of people living in extreme poverty has dwindled down by 50%.
3. We live for at least 72 years today on a global average.
4. 62% of all girls living below the extreme poverty line (less than 2 USD/day) still attends school at least until 5th grade. And in general, we spend more time at school!
5. The number of deaths from natural disasters has shrunk by half.
6. Both men and women globally attends school for at least 10 years on average. (Source: Hans Rosling, 2017).
7. GDP growth has accelerated in developed countries
8. In 1975, 58% survived child cancer. Today that number is 89%. Not perfect, but better. (Src: NCI [1.2] 2021.).
9. Global income inequality has gone down
While inequality within countries has gone up as a result of globalisation, global inequality has been on a steady downward trend for several decades. This is mostly a result of developing countries such as China and India where hundreds of millions of people have seen their living standards improve. In fact, for the first time ever since the Industrial Revolution, about half of the global population can be considered global middle class.
10. In 1970, 65% of all girls attended school. In 2017, 94% attended. Better. (Src: UNESCO [3], Rosling, 2017).
11. Conflicts are on decline
While the early 20th Century was especially brutal with two world wars in rapid succession, the post-war period has been very peaceful. For the first time ever, there has been no war or conflict in Western Europe in about three generations. And international organisations including the EU and the UN have led to a more stable world.
12. In 1991 exactly 72% had access to electricity. 93% in 2020. (Src: GTF, 2020 & Gapminder).
13. 22% of all toddlers had their vaccines taken in 1980, that number rose sharply to 88% in 2016. (Src: WHO [23]).
14.In 1980 58% had access to running water. Today 93% has it. (Src: WHO, UNICEF JMP & World Bank).
15. Back in 1960, we only protected 34 wild animal species. Today, we protect 88 431 of them. (Src: Gapminder [36], IUCN Red list 2021).
16. 19% could read and write on a basic level in 1904. In 2016 that number was 86% and today 92%. (Src: Gapminder 2017 [21] based on UNESCO and van Zanden).
17. Back in 1800, slavery or forced labour was legal in 193 countries. Today only 3 countries (which still blows my mind) left where it’s explicitly written legal – North Korea, Lesotho and Saudi Arabia. (Src: Pinker 2011, ILO and SDL 2018).
18. Capital punishment was sort of the norm in 1863 with 193 countries using it. It has since been abolished in 104 of them. So there’s still 89 countries left. (Src: Amnesty & Pinker 2020).
19. Registered HIV infections are down from 550 per 1 million people in 1996, to 241 per million in 2018. (Src: UNAIDS) and first trials for a cure are promising (2021)
20. Child labor is down from 28% in 1950 to 6% in 2018. (Src: OurWorldInData based on ILO, Gapminder & UNESCO 2019).
21. Smallpox was eradicated in 1979. (Src: Klepac et. al. 1984).
22. Malaria was eradicated by China in 2021.
23. In 1966, 50% of the human population worldwide lived in extreme poverty (below 2 USD/day, adjusted for inflation). In 2017 that number had dwindled to 9%. Not good enough, but better. (Src: World Bank and WFP, 2018).
24. There are currently 31 countries where same-sex marriage is legal. Before 1989 it was globally illegal, and Denmark recognise dit first!
25. According to the data from OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) the gender pay gap dropped over 10% between 2002 and 2015.
26. Guinea worm is almost eradicated.
27. Smoking is down.
28. Homicide rate is fallen dramatically (not only in Western Europe as below, as well as in US and emerging economies).
29. We’ve rapidly reduced the supply of nuclear weapons
30. More people in the world live in a democracy now
31. Moore’s law isn’t quite over yet
32. Access to the internet is increasing
33. Solar energy is getting cheaper
34. At least in developed countries, we work less!
What would you add to the list? Let's get to 100 :)
Sources:
Vox.com Wikipedia The Times of Israel