The Improving State of the World

These are a few key points from the new book The Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet, by Indur M. Goklany:

• The rates at which hunger and malnutrition have been decreasing in India since 1950 and in China since 1961 are striking. By 2002 China’s food supply had gone up 80%, and India’s increased by 50%. Overall, these types of increases in the food supply have reduced chronic undernourishment in developing countries from 37% in 1970 to 17% in 2001, despite an overall 83% growth in their populations.
• Economic freedom has increased in 102 of the 113 countries for which data is available for both 1990 and 2000.
• Between 1970 and the early 2000s, the global illiteracy rated dropped from 46 to 18 percent.
• Between 1897-1902 and 2001-2003, the U.S. retail prices of flour, bacon and potatoes relative to per capita income, dropped by 92, 85, and 82 percent respectively. And, the real global price of food commodities has declined 75% since 1950.

And these tables and charts are much more telling:

1. Infant Mortality Rates
2. Life Expectancy
3. Global Poverty
4. Overall Improvement in Human Well-Being