1. Since 1850 the number of people who can read has Increased from 10% to 84%!
2. The idea of ‘peak oil’ has evaporated. We have much more oil than was previously thought. Energy panic over!
3. Polio has almost been eradicated, thanks, in no small part, to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
4. The idea of a ‘universal basic income’ has become reality in Switzerland, Finland, and Canada.
5. The UN’s millennium goals were all met (except some environmental goals) between 2000 and 2015. Everything from decreasing hunger to reducing violence was achieved.
6. The number of deaths from malaria has fallen from 839,000 to 438,000 per year in only 15 years.
7. More and more people across the world are having access to emergency medical systems.
8. Google fiber is increasing its reach across the globe, so that soon we’ll all have very fast internet.
9. The official US employment rate is only 4.9% and falling. Furthermore, wages are (finally) said to be rising.
10. In America and elsewhere, murder rates have drastically fallen since the 1980s and 90s.
11. Renewable energy technology is on the rise. By 2016, some 33% of Germany’s energy sources were renewable, a significant increase on the 6% of 2000.
12. Thanks to the internet, more of the world’s children have access to information and education than ever before.
13. Dengue fever finally has a vaccine, which has passed its human trial with 100% success rate.
14. In the Netherlands, some prisons have had to be closed because of a lack of prisoners.
15. Wars have become much less violent than in the past. For instance, more people were killed in the American Civil War than in all of America’s other wars put together.
16. Child mortality rates have never been lower than what they are today.
17. Birth rates are set to stabilize as the human population plateaus at 10 billion, say the experts.
18. Thanks to new treatments and drugs, cancer has become less the death sentence it used to be.
19. Violent crime rates have sharply fallen across the world.
20. Poverty rates have fallen rapidly too.
21. Life expectancy has risen by 6 years this century as a worldwide average.
22. The Ozone layer is fixing itself.
