7 Billion Reasons to be Thankful

Last month, the world welcomed the birth of Danica Camacho of the Philippines.[i] The United Nations chose her to represent the arrival of the seven billionth person on Earth. And, even though the UN picked Halloween, this event is more in keeping with Thanksgiving.

Danica has inherited a better world than her mother.

She has been born into a healthier, wealthier, safer, and better-educated world. A world her grandparents and great-grandparents never dreamed of. Today’s average Filipino is twice as rich and lives 18 more years than the average Filipino of 1961.[ii][iii] Today’s average Filipino mother has nearly four fewer births than a 1961 mother.

Please note that I am not saying that she has it good. Danica certainly does not have it as good as an American baby; the average American’s income is nearly 15 to 30 times greater than an average Filipino’s (depending on the method used to compare incomes).

I am saying baby Danica was born into a world whose people (compared with 1961) are richer, healthier, happier, with a lower birth rate and exceedingly better off than 100 years ago.

Little Danica will probably be healthier than her mother due to increased availability of vaccinations, sanitary facilities, and clean water. She will have 70 percent less chance of contracting malaria than someone had only twenty-five years ago.

Danica will probably live in a city; today, more than half our planet’s population lives in an urban area. According to the United Nations Population Fund, cities “can deliver education, health care and other services” efficiently, due to compactness and that can relieve stress on natural habitats.[iv]

She will probably own a cell phone, since 80 percent of Filipinos already do.[v] In her developing country, Danica will be able to use her phone to find the best places to market her goods or services and where to find the best prices for what she needs. “Data services such as mobile-phone-based agricultural advice, health care and money transfer could provide enormous economic and developmental benefits,” wrote Tom Standage in The Economist.[vi]

She will probably go to school and be literate. “More than four-fifths of the world’s population can now read and write,” wrote Charles Kenney in Foreign Policy magazine, “And progress in education has been particularly rapid for women, one sign of growing gender equity.”[vii]

In fact, the world she entered is better than just six years ago and, given our current trend, extreme poverty (defined as less than a 1985 dollar a day), could be gone by 2035.[viii] A report issued by the Brookings Institution estimated “that between 2005 and 2010, the total number of poor people around the world fell by nearly half a billion people, from over 1.3 billion in 2005 to under 900 million in 2010.”[ix]

While you may scoff that far too many still live in soul-crushing poverty, the world is better. Better, by definition, is better. Instead of the world’s poor losing ground to being poorer, sicker, less well off, they are healthier, wealthier, and more prosperous than even ten years before.

That trend marks a first in our world’s history and we should give thanks this Thanksgiving season. Of course politicians and the high priests of Green theology can reverse the trend with calls to burn carbohydrates (biofuels often made from food) instead of hydrocarbons (oil and gas) for energy; thus driving up the price of food for those least able to pay for such claptrap. “I’m sorry about taking food out of your mouth, but we need to curb global warming for your own good.”

Let us give thanks for a world moving, for now, in the right direction. Although no one would argue the world is perfect, the strides made are striking. Have a happy Thanksgiving.

Note: Many of the numbers used in this article came from the World Bank. And others from www.gapminder.org, the brainchild of Swedish doctor Hans Rosling. Gapminder exhibits trends by having circles (representing countries) move in relation to two variables over time. It has some ready-to-go graphs, such as “The Wealth & Health of Nations,” that will whet your appetite for more.