Ten global trends every smart person should know : and many others you will find interesting / Ronald Bailey and Marian L. Tupy.
By: Bailey, Ronald [author.].
Contributor(s): Tupy, Marian L [author.].
Publisher: Washington, DC : Cato Institute, ©2020Description: 197 pages : color illustrations ; 19 x 26 cm.Content type: text | still image Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9781948647731.Other title: 10 global trends every smart person should know.Subject(s): Twenty-first century -- Forecasts | Technological innovations | Business forecasting | Economic forecasting | Social prediction | Business forecasting | Economic forecasting | Social prediction | Technological innovations | Twenty-first centuryGenre/Form: Forecasts | Print books.| Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On Shelf | CB161 .B355 2020 (Browse shelf) | Available | AU00000000018582 |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 180-196)
Why this book? -- Top 10 trends -- People trends -- Health trends -- Violence trends -- Work trends -- Natural resources trends -- Farm trends -- Tech trends -- U.S. trends -- Acknowledgments -- Notes.
Think the world is getting worse? You're wrong: the world is, for the most part, not getting worse. But 58 percent of folks in 17 countries that were surveyed in 2016 thought the world is either getting worse or staying the same rather than getting better. Americans were even more glum: 65 percent thought the world is getting worse and only 6 percent thought it was getting better. The uncontroversial data on major global trends in this book will persuade you that this dark view of the prospects for humanity and the natural world is, in large part, badly mistaken. World population will peak at 8 to 9 billion before the end of this century as the global fertility rate continues its fall from 6 children per woman in 1960 to the current rate of 2.4. The global absolute poverty rate has fallen from 42 percent in 1981 to 8.6 percent today. Satellite data show that forest area has been expanding since 1982. Natural resources are becoming ever cheaper and more abundant. Since 1900, the average life expectancy has more than doubled, reaching more than 72 years. Of course, major concerns such as climate change, marine plastic pollution, and declining wildlife populations are still with us, but many of these problems are already in the process of being ameliorated as a result of the favorable economic, social, and technological trends that are documented in this book.