When people hear or read good news, they are often skeptical, find it boring, or find ways to minimize what’s encouraging about the good news: “Yes, but …”
Rosling’s work is carried on by his son and daughter-in-law, who created the Gapminder Foundation to further his research.
In the book Factfulness Rosling listed a number of encouraging facts about the world, and studied people’s tendency to ignore, disbelieve, or downplay salutary facts. People readily believe and amplify falsehoods, when those falsehoods are depressing and discouraging. People have a predisposition to embrace propositions which ignite sadness or anger.
Among the uplifting facts listed in the book are:
- In the year 1800, over 190 countries in the world allowed slavery, which Rosling defines as a situation in which “forced labor is legal or practiced by the state.” In 2017, fewer than ten countries had legal systems which permitted slavery.
- In 1979, oil accidentally spilled from tanker ships into the sea amounted to 636,000 tons. After a consistent downward trend, only 6,000 tons were spilled in 2016.
- The price of solar panels in 2016, measured in terms of dollars per watt produced, was one one-hundredth of what it was in 1976.
- In 2016, new HIV infections worldwide were fewer than half of what they were in 1996.
- In 1800, 44% of children died before their fifth birthday. In 2016, only 4% of children died before that point.
- After the United States developed the catalytic converter in the 1970s, the number of countries using leaded gasoline fell from more than 190 in 1986 to fewer than 5 in 2017.
- Measured as a ratio of deaths to miles flown, plane crash deaths in the era of 2012 to 2016 were less than one two-thousandth (0.04%) of what they were in the years between 1929 and 1933.
- Some of Rosling’s definitions are imprecise or ambiguous, but the numbers are still encouraging. He defines “child labor” as “children aged 5 - 14 who work full time under bad conditions.” Whatever ‘bad’ might mean, it’s good that only 10% of children were subject to such labor in 2012, compared to 28% of children in 1950.
- Likewise, the phrase “deaths from disaster” is somewhat vague: what counts as a ‘disaster’? But in any case, those deaths fell from 971,000 per year in the 1930s to 72,000 annually in the years between 2010 and 2016.
- Air quality has improved. In 1970, for every person on the planet, 38 kg of SO2 particles were emitted in smoke. In 2010, only 14 kg of such smoke particles were emitted per person.
- The planet’s food supply continues to grow quicker than the population. Over the last five decades, the world has produced more food annually than is needed to feed the earth’s entire population. The yield of cereal grain per acre more than doubled between 1961 and 2014.
- The global literacy rate went from 10% in the year 1800 to 86% in 2016.
- “Child Cancer Survival,” defined as “5 year survival of those diagnosed before age 20, with best treatment,” went from 58% in 1975 to 80% in 2010.
- Rosling also lists statistics showing significant increases in the “share of people with some access to electricity” and the “share of people with a cellphone,” as well as the “share of people using the internet.” The number of scholarly articles published per year also continues to increase.
The innate inclination of the human mind to focus more on problems than on benefits. The structure of the news media, relying as it does on using strong emotions like fear and anger to elicit clicks on websites and keep eyes on continuously updated posts, amplifies this already troublesome human tendency.
To obtain a more accurate understanding of the world, the public must develop an intentional and disciplined habit of looking for good news. It’s there.
