Around the beginning of each year, I customarily write a column about how we’ve just had the “best year ever” in the long history of humanity.
This annual eruption of exuberance outrages some readers who see it as disrespectful of all the tragedies around us. Others welcome it as a reminder that even in our messed-up world, many trends are still going right.
So this year I heard from readers asking: Where’s your “best year ever” column?
To be honest, I didn’t have the heart to write it. I was dispirited by the suffering of children in Gaza, by the atrocities and famine in Sudan, by the wildfires in Los Angeles and what they portend and by a December trip to Madagascar, where I saw toddlers starving because of a drought probably exacerbated by climate change. And then a felon I consider unstable and a threat to democracy is about to move into the White House.
Yet, just as some readers wanted reassurance, so did I. Precisely because I felt blue, I wanted to read a column putting grim news in perspective. It has become apparent that the only way I am going to read such a column is if I write it first — so here goes.
For starters, let’s note that the worst thing that can happen is not a Trumpian rant; I’d say it’s to lose a child. And 2024 appears to have been the year in which the smallest percentage of children died since the dawn of humanity.
For most of history, about half of newborns died as children. As recently as 1950, more than one-quarter did. In 2024, the best guess of United Nations statisticians is that an all-time low of 3.6 percent of children died before the age of 5, a bit lower than in 2023 (which set the previous record).
That is still far too many. But the risk of that worst thing happening has dropped by half over the last quarter-century. Just since 2000, more than 80 million children’s lives have been saved.
Likewise, consider extreme poverty, defined as having less than $2.15 per day, adjusted for inflation. Historically, most human beings lived in extreme poverty, but the share has been plummeting — and in 2024 reached a new low of about 8.5 percent of the world’s people.
Another way of looking at it: Every day over the past couple of years, roughly 30,000 people moved out of extreme poverty worldwide. And here’s something to look forward to: This year will probably register even more progress against child deaths and poverty alike.
Education and literacy are the greatest forces empowering human beings, yet when I was a child, a majority of human beings had always been illiterate. Now we’re approaching 90 percent literacy worldwide, and the number of literate people is rising by more than 12 million each year. Every three seconds, another person becomes literate.
You may be thinking (as I am): But what about the wars and other tragedies still unfolding? Fair enough. But don’t lose sight of the cease-fire in Gaza or the toppling of the brutal al-Assad regime in Syria. Three of the world’s worst humanitarian crises of the last decade — Yemen, Ethiopia and Syria — are now in better shape because wars have subsided.
Perhaps the greatest geopolitical nightmare would be a war between the United States and China, breaking out either in the Taiwan Strait or near the Philippines. But Biden administration diplomacy, knitting together Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia in a common front, appears to have increased deterrence and reduced that risk.
I’m not smart enough to try to predict whether artificial intelligence will benefit civilization or end it, but one of my concerns in recent years has been that an authoritarian China would master A.I. before the West does. For now, that risk seems to have receded.
Here in America, we often focus on politics, and the risks in that realm are considerable. But not everything is politics.
Scientists have newly developed the first antipsychotic medication for schizophrenia in decades, and a vaccine against a form of breast cancer may enter Phase 2 trials this year. And with semaglutide medications, Americans are now becoming thinner, on average, each year rather than fatter, with far-reaching health consequences.
Climate change is a growing peril, of course, but stunning improvements in solar, wind, nuclear and other technologies, coupled with advances in batteries, offer a credible path toward decarbonizing the world economy — and might even result in energy becoming cheaper than ever before.
So after making this upbeat case, how convinced am I by my own argument? How do I feel? Not buoyant, but a little better. The world is a mess, and I promise to barrage you with woe every other day of the year — but it’s also valuable to take a nanosecond break at the beginning of each year to put it all in perspective. Look at the data, and it’s difficult to deny a larger truth: For all the challenges we face, there has been no better time to be alive.
I’m a backpacker, and sometimes, on a steep slog uphill through pelting rain or snow, it’s good to rest against a tree for a moment and try to remember that hiking is fun — to recharge myself for the next push uphill. That’s likewise the usefulness of a periodic reminder that the arc of human progress is still evident in metrics that matter most, such as the risk of a child dying, and that we truly can get over the next damn hill.
Thanks to readers for supporting the nonprofits in my holiday gift guide. We’ve raised more than $9 million for three outstanding organizations working abroad and at home — the kinds of groups that create hope. This sum will assist more than 180,000 people, and donations will be accepted until Jan. 31. Some matching funds are available. To learn more or donate, visit KristofImpact.org.
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