As we close out another year and another decade — yes, the new “roaring twenties” are upon us — it makes sense to take a little inventory of where we stand in the grand scheme.
Ladies and gentlemen, the state of our union and our world is fantastic.
On the energy front, nobody predicted that we’d be where we are now. As catalogued succinctly in Axios, we are mightily outperforming expectations.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration made a projection back in 2010 that by this year the United States would produce around 6 million barrels of oil per day. In fact, we are producing around twice that amount.
Add to that that a barrel of oil was expected to cost upwards of $100 per barrel, but with the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) boom, a barrel is priced at about $60, a hefty savings for consumers.
U.S. oil imports were projected to be a net 8 million barrels today. However they are closer to zero. In fact, in September, the U.S. “exported a net 89,000 barrels of petroleum,” according to Axios.
Greenhouse gas emissions have fallen below predictions as coal-fired power production is falling rapidly and being supplanted by cleaner natural gas with inroads also being made with wind and solar.
Moving from energy to climate, the ozone layer is making a comeback. NASA reported in October that the “2019 Ozone Hole is the Smallest on Record Since Its Discovery.”
People around the world are having a better time of it. As the World Bank reported last year, “The World Bank’s preliminary forecast is that extreme poverty has declined to 8.6% in 2018.” That is down from 11% in 2013.
Humanity is also living longer, as a recent global health study by the World Health Organization showed. “Between 2000 and 2016, global life expectancy at birth, for both sexes combined, increased by 5.5 years, from 66.5 to 72.0 years. The number of years lived in full health — that is, healthy life expectancy (HALE) — also increased over that period, from 58.5 years in 2000 to 63.3 years in 2016.”
The world is getting better in a number of ways. As the WHO reports, “Vaccination coverage rates have increased while incidence rates for several infectious diseases, the prevalence of tobacco smoking, exposure to environmental risks, and premature NCD mortality have decreased at the global level.”
Those things that were once considered unimaginable luxuries are more broadly accessible than ever before. Providers offer affordable payment plans for the new iPhone 11 and even more affordable plans for older iPhones and the equivalent. That tiny phone contains more information, works of art, analysis, science, entertainment and literature, etc., in the palm of the hand than any alternate destination in the history of civilization.
Somehow, in a few years, the iPhone 11 will be considered weak and slow compared to whatever gadget organizes our lives at that point. It will be integrated in our cars — which may drive themselves — and new and exciting forms of transportation, which may well take us into space.
Things are good and getting better. We just need to take a step further away from the day-to-day minutiae to see it. That is a good thing.
"Health" - Google News
December 29, 2019 at 12:50PM
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US and world making strides in health, wealth - Boston Herald
"Health" - Google News
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