You don't have to take our word for it. Here is how the world has changed, in pictures, from the most trusted data we have.
Share of people living on less than $2.15 a day. More than a billion people left extreme poverty in a single generation.
Children who died before their fifth birthday.
Average life expectancy at birth, worldwide, in years.
Top row: today, about 87%. Bottom row: 1820, about 12%.
Share of people using the internet.
Cost of electricity from new large solar farms, per kilowatt-hour.
Share of people with access to electricity.
None of this means the work is done. Hundreds of millions still live in poverty, and climate change is real. But the numbers show that hard problems can be solved, and that is the best reason to keep solving them.
Sources: World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform; UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation; UN World Population Prospects; UNESCO; ITU; IRENA Renewable Power Generation Costs; IEA / World Bank Tracking SDG7; long-run figures from Our World in Data. Further reading: Hans Rosling, Factfulness; Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now.