If you watch television news regularly, you could be forgiven for assuming that we live in a world of ever-increasing violence, danger, poverty, and disease. Fortunately, the reality is actually quite different. Here are several good things happening in the world right now:
- Life expectancy in the United States and around the world has hit an all-time high.
- It appears that average general intelligence is increasing around the world. In the United States, the average rate of increase seems to be about three points of IQ per decade.
- Over the past 200 years, people in almost every country have become healthier and wealthier.
- The Earth’s protective ozone layer has started repairing itself. The ozone layer is expected to completely recover by the middle of this century.
- The rates of violent crime are plummeting in rich countries. Some argue we are living in the most peaceful time in our species existence.
- The number of people living in poverty has dropped significantly since 1990.
- In the United States, the number of private sector jobs has increased every month for 72 months straight (six years.)
- Teen pregnancies in the United States have dropped by 67% since 1990. Abortions also hit a record low.
- The death rate from cancer in the United States has dropped 23% over the past twenty years.
- The average proportion of women in parliaments around the world has nearly doubled since 1995.
- The number of out-of-school children worldwide has fallen by almost half, to an estimated 57 million in 2015, down from 100 million in 2000.
- The global under-five mortality rate has declined by more than half, dropping from 90 to 43 deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2015.
- Since 1990, the maternal mortality ratio has declined by 45 per cent worldwide, and most of the reduction has occurred since 2000.
- The tuberculosis mortality rate fell by 45 per cent and the prevalence rate by 41 per cent between 1990 and 2013. New infections of HIV and malaria have also decreased substantially.
