How Is Our Planet Actually Doing?

California is going up in smoke. Scandinavia, which includes some of the coldest countries on the planet, has been hotter and dryer this summer than ever before. One billion people are living in extreme poverty, while the rest are using up non-renewable resources at an unprecedented rate.

The impression we often get from the mainstream media, and perhaps even more from the progressive media, is that the world is not only in trouble, it’s actually getting worse. But is that truly the real state of the world? Aren’t we doing better than 150 years ago when kids in Dickens’ London worked 12 hour days and lived in squalor?

To find out how we are actually doing as a human society, I consulted an expert fact finder, namely Hans Rosling, the Swedish author of the book Factfulness.

To understand where we are at as a species compared to some decades ago, let’s start off with a quiz taken from Rosling’s book. Write down your answers and compare them to the correct answers below. You may be in for a surprise.

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