As we close out the year, I've compiled a list of data points – neither exhaustive nor impartial – that contain only good news.
I do this to counter a paradox: Most people believe that the world is going backwards and we are heading toward chaos, even though the data makes it clear that this perception is wrong. The world is not getting worse, it is getting better. That doesn't mean it's a perfect place, or even a good place. We suffer from wars, injustice, hunger and disease. A minority of the population owns most of the wealth, while 8.4% survive on less than $2 a day. Poverty is the order of the day. But of all the global scenarios we know (not imagined or desired, but known), this is the best.
The realization that we are making progress worries many people because they fear that it will make us conformist. But I think it's the other way around: to move on, it's useful to feel like you're moving forward.
Happy New Year,
Kiko
The good news
❤️ 1. Life is getting longer again. After a break caused by the pandemic, global life expectancy increased again in 2023: today it is 73 years, up to 12 years more than in 1980. | United Nations
👬 2. More and more people believe that their city is a “good place” for gays or lesbians to live. In 2005 only 20% of the world's population thought this way, today it is 50%. In Mexico, for example, the number rose from 39% to 64%. | Gallup
🆘 3. The pandemic has made us more altruistic. The proportion of people who “helped a stranger” increased by 10% in 2021 and 2022. | Happiness report
👶 4. Malaria vaccines have arrived. The first vaccine proved effective locally: child mortality (from whatever cause) fell by 13% where it was administered. A second, cheaper vaccine was also approved. | THE COUNTRY
🧬 5. The first CRISPR therapy for DNA editing also received the green light. It is still a primitive tool, but it has a promising future: dozens of trials are currently underway. | THE COUNTRY
🏦 6. Tax evasion has (significantly) decreased. How? Thanks to systems for exchanging banking information. In 2013, hidden assets worth 10% of global GDP, almost entirely in the hands of the rich, were in tax havens and not reported to any country's tax authorities, but in 10 years this number has fallen to 3%. | Tax Observatory
💰 7. Global GDP per capita has doubled so far this century. It has increased from $8,000 in 2000 to $21,000 in 2021, adjusted for inflation and cost of living. GDP per capita increased on all continents. | World Bank
⚖️ 8. And inequality has also been reduced. The top 10% of people have 55% of total income, which is a lot, but less than in 2000. | WIDS
🎮 9. 68% of Australian retirees play video games. The majority of this number consists of women who want to “have a good time,” “overcome challenges,” and “improve their mental health.” | IGEA
👵 10. Dementia cases fail. The incidence of Alzheimer's and similar diseases has fallen by 30% in 15 years. The decline is not due to a drug – although there are promising ones – but to the higher levels of education of the new generations, which protects their minds from decay. | THE COUNTRY
🧑🎓 11. The number of university students has doubled in 20 years. About 39% of boys and 45% of girls of college age are enrolled in higher education. | World Bank
😀 12. New emojis have been released. My favorites are the jellyfish and the shaking head.
👩💼 13. There are more women in national parliaments. Women occupy 27% of seats, twice as many as in 1990. | I PU
🧑🚀 14. The record for the number of people in space has been broken. In May, 17 people were in orbit at the same time. | Planet4589
🌖 15. India was the fourth country to (softly) land on the moon. The Chandrayaan-3 probe landed on the moon on August 23, a feat achieved only by the Soviet Union (1966), the United States (1966) and China (2013). | Nature
🤖 16. Generative artificial intelligence continues its amazing progress. It got better at many tasks that we thought were impossible for an algorithm: it writes, it paints, it animates, it understands images, it reasons (in a sense), and it is creative (in a sense). It's definitely thought-provoking. | THE COUNTRY
🌦️ 17. An AI program outperformed traditional weather forecast models. It is a paradigm shift: current numerical calculation models that are based on the simulation of known equations are now combined with black box models that learn independently from data. | FT
🧠 18. New brain implants gave a voice to people who cannot speak. The idea is to measure the brain's electrical signals and use an AI capable of distinguishing the patterns associated with each phoneme. | FT
💊 19. We have revolutionary anti-obesity drugs. We already knew that Ozempic and Wegovy regulate satiety and cause dramatic weight loss. They have now also been shown to reduce the risk of heart failure and stroke. | Science
🎉 20. HIV medications have prevented 21 million deaths since 1996. The number of deaths has fallen by a third. | UNAIDS
🥇 21. Katalin Karikó won the Nobel Prize and embodied the promise of our progress. Karikó grew up in Hungary in the 1960s with no hot water, no television or refrigerator and shared the only warm room with his family. She planted seeds in the garden, loved school and was the first in her family to attend university. In 1985 she emigrated to the USA and hid some money in her two-year-old daughter's stuffed toy. Then she was an understaffed researcher at the University of Pennsylvania for two decades. She was never appointed professor. She was an RNA expert when interest in the molecule waned, but Karikó didn't let up. In 1997, while standing bored in line at the printer, she struck up a conversation with immunologist Drew Weissman, and so began a collaboration that eventually, half by determination, half by chance, came to fruition with a technology that will go down in history : RNA vaccines. | Joe Walker Podcast
🦟 22. The release of rare mosquitoes stopped dengue fever in three Colombian cities. How? They are specifically infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, which prevents them from transmitting this disease. | Saloni Dattani
🐯 23. Iberian lynx continue to recover. In 2002 there were only 94 copies left, today there are 1,600. | THE COUNTRY
🐶 24. Many pets were healed. A reader wrote to me that his dog Canela had survived five trips to the veterinary clinic this year (which didn't go well): “She's here now, happy and content and strong as an oak tree.”
🌤️ 25. There are fewer suicides in the world. The suicide rate per 100,000 people has fallen by 35% in 25 years. | QUEEN
🌊 26. Deaths from drowning (in water) have fallen by half since 1990. Thousands and thousands of children were saved. | Future crisis
☀️ 27. China has tripled its renewable energy. In 2007 it was 6% of total energy demand, today it is 18%. | OWiD
🕶️ 28. Chile was the country that gained the most energy from the sun. This was followed by Australia, Israel, Greece and Spain. | OWiD
🌞 29. Solar energy is growing exponentially. Global installed capacity has doubled in four years. | BloombergNEF
🥳 30. We discovered that chatting makes us happy. If we rate our happiness 6 out of 10 after talking to a friendly stranger, that number jumps to 7. | Science
⛽ 31. The global share of energy from burning fossil fuels has fallen from 90% to 82% since 1980. And the pace promises to accelerate to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. | THE COUNTRY
☢️ 32. SO₂ emissions have fallen by a third since 1980. This curbed acid rain, which damages lake and stream ecosystems. | In progress
🌎 33. And the ozone layer will fully recover. Thirty-five years ago, the Montreal Protocol mandated the elimination of 96 chemical substances (aerosols and refrigerants) that opened a hole in the barrier that protects us from ultraviolet radiation. It was a success. | THE COUNTRY
🏥 34. Child mortality has fallen more than we can imagine. For thousands of years, half of children died before reaching adulthood. As recently as 1950 – less than 75 years ago – one in four children died before they grew up. Today, 96% of babies in the world grow up healthy, strong and smart.
I've known this statistic for a long time, but in 2023 I felt it firsthand. We had a healthy baby who is growing up happily and without complications. But could I have said the same thing 100 years ago? Luna was slightly turned, and after 20 hours of labor (to the monitored rhythm of her little heart), three pediatricians thought it would be safer for her to be delivered by cesarean section, a routine operation that might have saved her life. We vaccinated them against diseases whose names I can't remember and even against bronchiolitis with a (non-)vaccine that didn't exist last year. Luna survived a hot summer without knowing it, and when winter came she always had a warm blanket, a fluffy cot and an artificially warmed room. We even made her sleep on her back because it's proven to be safer, and while nothing probably would have happened if she slept face down, this knowledge saves babies every day.
We delight in everyday miracles—in the form of technology, institutions, and wisdom—whose success goes unnoticed by us because the misfortunes we dodge are invisible bullets.
👔 35. It's a treasure to discover amazing things like babies are born with fashion judgment. A beautiful example was shared by Alok Morarka: “My 20-month-old daughter Siya was crying and whining after a long day at daycare. When it was time to change, she kept insisting, “Blue shirt!” Blue shirt!' I pulled out three different blue onesies, which she pushed away almost in disgust. Siya kept pointing at me. Finally I understood: I was wearing a blue striped shirt. “Can you wear this?” I asked, holding up her blue striped romper. 'Yes yes yes yes!' She called. “She wanted to take on her father.”
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