45 reasons to start 2025 with optimism

The ultimate paradox: most people believe that the world is going backwards, and that we are heading towards chaos, although the data makes it clear that this perception is false. The world doesn’t get worse, it gets better. This doesn’t mean it’s a perfect place. Not even a good place. We suffer wars, injustices, sorrows and diseases. A minority of the population owns most of the wealth, while 8.6% survive on just two dollars a day. Poverty is extended. But of all the global scenarios we have known (not imagined or desired, but known), this is probably the best.

Recognizing that we are making progress worries many people, because they fear that this will make us conformist. But I think it’s the other way around: to keep walking, it’s useful to know that we’re moving forward.

The good news (for 2024)

❤️ 1. Vaccines saved millions of children. It is estimated that each year they prevent the death of 2% of babies. | Owid

🌱 2. Generation Z lives better than their parents. We know this because 75% of people between 12 and 27 years old live in emerging economies. In Jakarta, Mumbai or Nairobi, young people are better off than their parents: they are richer, healthier and better educated; They are better informed and more connected. | The Economist

🌍 3. Extreme poverty is at historic lows. Although 8.6% of people still suffer from it, that figure is a third of what it was in 2000. | Owid

💶 4. Median global income has doubled this century. Between 2000 and 2023 it went from 3,600 euros to 7,200 euros (per adult and after adjusting the figures for inflation). | WID

🎈 5. Infant mortality in Asia has been divided by three. The percentage of children who do not reach the age of 15 has fallen in twenty years from 6.7% to 2.4%. UNICEF

🇪🇸 6. In Spain, this youth mortality was divided by ten in the generation that goes from grandparents to grandchildren. In 1969, 3.7% of children did not reach the age of 15; now they are 0.37%. | Owid

💉 7. A new drug can revolutionize HIV prevention in Africa. The antiviral Lenacapavir has shown an effectiveness against contagion of 96%-100% with two injections a year, easier to comply with than the daily pill. | Science

🧬 8. Europe approved the first gene editing treatment with CRISPR. Therapy against two blood diseases inaugurates a new era in medicine. | El País

☀️ 9. Renewables broke another record. For the first time, the EU generated more electricity from wind and solar than from fossil fuels. A triumph of wind and sun. | El País

🍃 10. Clean air saved 100,000 lives in Europe. Between 2010 and 2019, deaths from heart disease linked to pollution decreased by almost 20%. Breathing better is an ongoing achievement. | FT

👬 11. Three countries legalized equal marriage to set a precedent. It was done by Greece (the first Orthodox Christian country), Estonia (the first in the former USSR), and Thailand (the first in Southeast Asia). | El País, HRC and CNN

🧠 12. Artificial intelligence won two Nobel Prizes. One was for its pioneers and another for an application in biology that arouses the enthusiasm of scientists: “What took us months or years, AlphaFold was able to do in a weekend.” | El País

🕍 13. Notre-Dame Cathedral was reborn. It reopened just five years after the devastating fire. Engineer Philippe Jost, who led the reconstruction, instead of complaining, recognized his privilege: “Every day we have twenty difficulties, but it is different when you work in a building with a soul. “Beauty makes everything easy.” | NYT

🎓 14. In Spain we study more than in 2000. Young people with a higher degree rose from 37% to 52%. | Carlos Magro

💰 15. We earn more money. Despite the inflationary blow, the income of the median Spaniard—the one that separates the half with the most income and the half with the least—grew by 17%. | WID

📈 16. We live longer lives. Life expectancy in Spain has extended four years so far this century. | H.M.D.

🥳 17. Young people smoke and drink less. Since 2010, binge drinking has dropped from 30% to 19%, and daily tobacco consumption, which reached 28% for girls, has dropped to 8%. | Study

🤝 18. And we even trust more! 41% of Spaniards say that “most people can be trusted”, a record figure since this survey began in 1984. | WVS

🎮 19. 36% of 65-year-old Spanish women play video games. Some will think that it is not good news; Meanwhile they have fun. | 40dB.

🚀 20. An incredible video of the Starship’s reusable landing fired the space imagination. SpaceX managed to capture a ship returning from the sky, “grabbing” it from the launch tower. The promise is to make space exploration cheaper. | SpaceX

🧑‍🚀 21. The record for the number of people in space was broken again. In September, 19 humans coincided in orbit. | Planet4589

🛰️ 22. Satellite images are now everyday. In 2024 they have been used to uncover methane leaks, document attacks against civilians and analyze floods. | El País, II and NYT

🤯 23. Willow took a (baffling) quantum leap. Google’s new computer performed a calculation in minutes that would take a supercomputer 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. The universe doesn’t have that much time… which gives food for thought: “It reinforces the idea that quantum computing occurs in multiple parallel universes.” | Google

💧 24. We found water on an asteroid! The discovery illuminates a transcendental question for the origin of life on our planet: how did water reach Earth? | Smithsonian

🇲🇽 25. Mexico elected its first female president ever. On October 1, Claudia Sheinbaum took office. | NYT

👨‍🍼 26. Men used their paternity leaves in Spain. When they were extended to 16 non-mandatory weeks, some people thought they wouldn’t take them. But they have done it! 91% were able (and wanted) to take full leave. | El País

💞 27. Also in Spain, for the first time the majority of divorced parents share custody. It is a profound change from the reality of just a decade ago: then 76% of custody was for mothers. | El País

🐟 28. Hundreds of salmon came back up the Klamath River (in the US West Coast). The Yurok tribe pushed to achieve the demolition of four dams, in the largest river recovery in the United States. | BBC

🐒 29. We discovered that marmosets are called by their name. Scientists have incorporated them into a select club: only dolphins, parrots, elephants and humans do that. | El País

🐔 30. Fewer chickens suffer in cages. In the United Kingdom, egg production with caged layers has halved since 1996. | Owid

🐼 31. Twenty animals in danger of extinction were recovered. The list includes the giant panda, narwhal, Siamese crocodile and Iberian lynx. | El País

🌳 32. Deforestation of the Amazon stopped again. The trend was reversed with the return of Lula da Silva and the departure of Jair Bolsonaro: satellite images show half the destruction in 2023 than in previous years. | Ritchie

⚡️33. 18% of new cars are electric. In Norway or China they sell more than combustion ones. | Simon Evans

🌲 34. Paris will replace 60,000 parking spaces with trees. The French capital has already banned cars and motorcycles in the center, now it will make room for more vegetation. | Ecowatch

🚋 35. In Japan there is a dead-end platform. You can only get on and off the train. What does it exist for? To go out for a minute to contemplate a beautiful forest over the river. | Taras Grescoe

🚕 36. In San Francisco there are robotaxis. Google’s self-driving car service — Waymo — made 22% of paid trips in November in that city. | Appeconomy

🤖 37. Millions of people use AI. In two years they have crept into our lives: we use them to translate, program, answer questions or follow cooking recipes. ChatGPT was one of the 10 most visited websites in the world this year. It is just the beginning of a revolution that can make the world radically better. | Wikipedia

🩻 38. An example: ChatGPT offered better diagnoses than doctors in a recent study. The promise is to leave the consultation with an instant second opinion. | NYT

🧬 39. Medical innovations don’t stop. In 2024, new treatments demonstrated their effectiveness with rigorous trials, against allergies, cancer or schizophrenia. | S.D.

🍏 40. Drugs like Ozempic or Mounjaro could define an entire era. These treatments, which mimic the hormone GLP-1, achieve unthinkable weight loss and could tackle obesity and its associated diseases. If that were not enough, its impact goes further: trials continue to accumulate that suggest benefits against diabetes, heart disease, kidney problems, Alzheimer’s and even addictions. | FT

💉 41. One of these GLP-1 drugs reduces the risk of diabetes by 90%. In a trial with obese people, only 1.3% of the treated group developed the disease, compared to 13% of the placebo group. | NEJM

❤️‍🩹 42. Mortality from cancer continues to fall. In Spain, deaths have decreased by 30% since 1995, with similar decreases in Colombia (23%), Mexico (27%), Ireland (35%) or Singapore (45%). | Owid and BMJ

🏆 43. Dommaraju Gukesh became the youngest world champion in the history of chess. The 18-year-old Indian almost missed the decisive move: “Suddenly I saw it; and that is the happiest moment of my life.” An 18-year-old prodigy surprising the world? He is by no means the only one… | El País

✨ 44. There are geniuses where we don’t look. Do you think there is less talent than before? Many feel this way, blinded by pessimism and lack of imagination. But the problem is another: we look for geniuses in the wrong places. Today’s Michelangelo could be in the cinema (Christopher Nolan), Archimedes in artificial intelligence (Geoffrey Hinton) and Marie Curie dedicated to genetics (Jennifer Doudna). The new Napoleon perhaps designs strategies from the bench (Guardiola); Chaplin could be a YouTuber (Mr. Beast); Jane Austen could write songs (Taylor Swift) and Tolkien could create video games (Neil Druckmann). Genius does not disappear: it shines in unexplored territories. | U.T.

🌈 45. Millions of babies started talking. My daughter Luna says “no” to almost everything. He looks at a toy you offer him and says “no.” She says “no” and continues with her things. But when you offer her something she does want—a worm, going to the printer for a drawing, or jumping from mom to dad’s arms—she gets the urge and says “yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.” Because the desire to pursue the good, like the desire to laugh and want to spread your laughter, is an innate impulse.

Article written by Carlos Cámara, CFR Global Executive Search Spain
Photo source: Freepik