The World Is Getting Better - Shhh!
(Image from taratours.com)
Ten years ago or so, billionaire investor and philanthropist John Templeton shocked many by saying in an interview that the world had never been better. It seemed a strange attitude.
Now the UN has also shocked many by saying that the world has never been better-off, here. Oddly, very few in the major media have reported it. But here is the UN conclusion at the end of its "State of the Future" report:
People around the world are becoming healthier, wealthier, better educated, more peaceful, more connected, and they are living longer.
Wait! Isn't the outlook supposed to be bleak? Hasn't it been bad all our lives? Anyone remember the "Stop the planet, I want to get off" buttons of the 60s? Then -
A group of scientists calling themselves the Club of Rome issued a report called "Limits to Growth." It explained that lifeboat Earth had become so weighed down with humans that we were running out of food, minerals, forests, water, energy and just about everything else that we need for survival.
Paul Ehrlich's best-selling book "The Population Bomb" (1968) gave England a 50-50 chance of surviving into the 21st century.
In 1980, Jimmy Carter released the "Global 2000 Report," which declared that life on Earth was getting worse in every measurable way.
"Doom and gloom" journalism is about the same today. Yet the UN reports that:
-World-wide illiteracy rates have fallen by half since 1970 and now stand at an all-time low of 18%.
-More people live in free countries than ever before.
-The average human being today will live 50% longer in 2025 than one born in 1955.
And how did all these good things happen? According to the UN report, it was -
Capitalism, according to the U.N. Free trade is rightly recognized as the engine of global prosperity in recent years.
True, we still have problems. Global warming is said to be getting worse and income disparities are widening. But while incomes are more unequal, most also have higher incomes.
-In 1981, 40% of the world's population lived on less than $1 a day. Now that percentage is only 25%, adjusted for inflation.
-At current rates of growth, "world poverty will be cut in half between 2000 and 2015"--which is arguably one of the greatest triumphs in human history.
-Trade and technology are closing the global "digital divide," and the report notes hopefully that soon laptop computers will cost $100 and almost every schoolchild will be a mouse click away from the Internet
-The world's six billion people are living longer, healthier and more comfortably than ever
The population-controllers also got the story wrong. Now -
Demographers now say that in the second half of this century, the human population will stabilize and then fall
Maybe what we need is fewer "doom-sayers" and more "doom-slayers." That would fit the facts better.
