This opinion piece describes how poverty and mother/ child mortality has dropped in the past 20 years, along with how birth control is becoming available so women can choose smaller families. A good news story which increases human happiness while mitigating overpopulation. While the story focuses on a small part of Africa, it provides hope that these benefits can spread.
The title is rather hyperbolic but the trends could potentially have worldwide Macro benefits…
This May Be the Most Important Thing Happening in the World Today
By Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, June 3, 2023
One of the misimpressions people have about the world is that it’s going to hell.
Perhaps that’s because humanity’s great triumph over the last half-century — huge reductions in poverty, disease and early death — goes largely unacknowledged. Just about the worst thing that can happen to anyone is to lose a child, and historically, almost half of children died before reaching adulthood. We happen to live in a transformational era in which 96 percent of the world’s children now survive until adulthood.
… Medical care for pregnant women and babies is mostly free now in Sierra Leone, as is contraception…
…
The share of the world’s people living in extreme poverty has plunged from 38 percent in 1990 to about 8 percent now. Historians may eventually look back and conclude that leaps in human well-being, health and child survival were the most important things happening in the world in the early 21st century… [end quote]
Wendy