Reasons to Be Cheerful — Part 5

Swedish researcher Hans Rosling made a career of pointing out that things in the world are often going better than people assume. His son and daughter-in-law carry on his work in the Gapminder Foundation, which seeks to dispel negative preconceptions about the state of the world.

The three of them co-authored a book titled Factfulness, which includes these observations:

• Safe drinking water is a key variable in public health. The “share of people with water from [a] protected source” around the world rose from 58% in 1980 to 88% in 2015.
• Educating girls as well as boys is a key factor in promoting prosperity as well as intellectual innovation. The “share of girls of primary school age enrolled” in school increased from 65% in 1970 to 90% in 2015.
• Immunization is a major variable in childhood wellbeing. The “share of 1-year-olds who got at least one vaccination” grew from 22% in 1980 to 88% in 2016.
• Adequate nutrition is foundational for other aspects of health. The “share of people undernourished” fell globally from 28% in 1970 to 11% in 2015.
• The environment affects all humans. In the 1970s scientists discovered that chlorofluorocarbons damage the atmosphere’s ozone layer. The ozone layer protects us from harmful UV light. In 1970, humans used 1,663,000 tons of “ozone-depleting substances.” In 2016, we used only 22,000 tons. The amount of ozone in the upper atmosphere is increasing.
• Warfare is obviously devastating to human life. In 1986, there were 64,000 nuclear warheads among the world’s military forces. The Soviet Union had the largest number of any nation. By 2017, there were only 15,000 warheads on the planet.
• In the twentieth century, approximately 200 million people were killed in combat, for an average of 2 million per year. In the year 1942 alone, an estimated 20,100,000 people died in war. So far, in the twenty-first century, the rate is much lower. A mere three million people are estimated to have died in combat in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. If this rate continues, the twenty-first century could be one of the safest and most peaceful centuries.
• Smallpox is a horrifying and often fatal disease. In the 1700s, smallpox killed 10% of the population in Sweden and France, and 14% of the population in Russia. In the 1700s and 1800s, it killed hundreds of millions of people. In 1850, 148 different countries reported cases of smallpox. In 1979, that number fell to zero as the disease was eradicated.
• Unique landscapes provide habitats for rare or endangered species. In 1900, only 0.03% of the land on the planet was part of preservation or conservation efforts. By 2016, 14.7% “of Earth’s land surface [was] protected as national parks and other reserves.”
• In 1869, the women in the State of Wyoming became among the very first women on the planet to enjoy the same legal voting rights as men. By 2017, women were voting in 193 countries.
• Although the decision to label a nation-state as democratic is somewhat ambiguous or subjective, in the year 1816, approximately 1% of the world’s population lived in a democracy. By 2015, it was 56%.

Rosling is making two points in his book: first, there is lots of good news to be received; second, that our communication tends to favor bad news. This happens both on a macro level, as the news media tends to publicize bad news ahead of good news, and on a micro level, as individual psychology tends to be more skeptical of good news than of bad.

It remains to be investigated whether this inclination to be distrustful of good news is innate or learned. In either case, it benefits the individual and society to be more deliberate in seeking, digesting, and relaying good news.