Good News Gallery
Why is no one telling you this?
Poverty is falling faster than ever in history
Only 9% of people suffer extreme poverty today – down from more than half the planet in 1950.
Childhood death, once commonplace, is now rare
For all of human history prior to 1800, half of children died before age 15. People made no progress solving this tragedy for thousands of years.
Then, a miracle:
Today 99.7% of kids see their 15th birthday in rich countries.
Childrens’ lives aren’t just precious; they’re fragile. Sickness, dirty water, war, pollution, starvation, thirst, crime, and lack of quality doctors can kill them.
Plunging child mortality is of the mother of all quality-of-life indicators… and it proves the whole world is rapidly improving in all the most important areas. We must keep going—especially for the children of not-yet-rich countries, who still perish at unacceptable rates.
Overpopulation has already been solved
Isn’t it only a matter of time before the human population surpasses what our earth can support?
While out-of-control population growth was a valid concern in the 1960s, growth has dramatically slowed. The UN projects population will peak by 2100, at around 10 billion, then plateau for good (green hump).
The pink line shows the annual population growth rate. It has been declining since 1963, and is projected to hit zero by 2100. In many rich countries like Japan and Germany, the population has already stopped growing. Even China’s population has shrunk in recent years.
Why? It turns out as a country grows wealthier, its citizens have fewer kids. When moms and dads are confident all their children will survive, they tend to have 2 or 3 kids instead of 10.
The earth is getting greener
Earth has more trees than 35 years ago. America has more forestland than 100 years ago, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
Why? One, carbon dioxide is fertilizer. Two, we produce more food on less land than ever before, giving forests plenty of room to regrow.
Agriculture was by far the biggest cause of deforestation. But since the 1960s, global grain production has skyrocketed 250%, while land used to grow it has barely changed.
Famines have been all but eradicated
Famines used to kill tens of millions of people per decade.
Thanks to innovation that’s led to an abundance of food, combined with trade between countries that quickly gets food to where it’s needed most, famines are going extinct.
Our air is getting cleaner and cleaner
Air pollution in the US continues to decline.
The air in London has never been cleaner for as far back as we have data
Declining deaths
You’ll find this trend across the entire rich Western world. Deaths from air pollution also continue to decline.
US carbon emissions peaked 17 years ago and continue to decline
America emits 18% less carbon than in 2007. That’s total carbon emissions, not per person. Most wealthy Western countries are similarly reducing carbon output.
But as you can see here, China’s carbon emissions are skyrocketing, largely because it still relies on burning coal.
Blame China? Well, you’d be hard-pressed to find a country that grew out of poverty without degrading its environment initially. After a country grows prosperous enough to satisfy its people’s basic needs, then it will turn attention to improving the environment.
The richest countries have the cleanest environments. Cheer for prosperity.
Global homicide rates are at all-time lows
Violence used to be a fact of life. Increasingly, it’s an aberration.
Humanity is safer from climate disasters than ever before
The number of people killed by climate disasters has plunged from almost half a million in 1920, to a rounding error today.
Early warning systems, better infrastructure, and other innovations all contribute.
There has been no increase in the cost of climate-related disasters
Contrary to fear-mongering rhetoric, the cost of weather-related disasters has barely changed since 1990. If anything, it’s declined slightly.
Renewable energy production is skyrocketing
Wind and solar power generation are growing exponentially.
For this to continue, we’ll need a cheap and reliable way to store the energy intermittently produced by wind and solar.
The price of lithium-ion batteries has fallen at least 97% since 1990
And cost declines aren’t just continuing; they’re accelerating.
The average human lives twice as long as 100 years ago
For most of human history, the average person only lived into their 30s.
Today the average person lives past 70.
Notice two dips. The recent one is COVID.
The dip from the 1950s isn’t a World War. It’s Communist China’s “Great Leap Forward,” which killed tens of millions of people.
Consider it a warning of what can happen when freedom and innovation lose to dangerous ideologies like Marxism.
Have some good news you’d like us to feature?
Tell us about it at members@rationaloptimistsociety.com.
We’ll only consider submissions based on objective, verifiable data and rational analysis. Otherwise, we’re no better than the irrational pessimists…
Join the Rational Optimist Society to receive our weekly members-only emails
Breakthrough news and upbeat insights from the home of rational optimism.
