Olivia: A recent survey asked Americans if global poverty had doubled, halved, or stayed the same in the last 20 years. Two-thirds said it had doubled. Jackson: Wow. Okay, that sounds about right, emotionally. It feels like things are getting worse. Olivia: The real answer? It was cut in half. Jackson: Hold on, cut in half? That’s a staggering disconnect between how things feel and what the data says. Where on earth does that stat come from? Olivia: It's from the book we're diving into today, Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future by Johan Norberg. And what's fascinating is that Norberg is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a classical liberal, but he actually started out as an anti-industrial anarchist. His journey to becoming this data-driven optimist is a story in itself. Jackson: An anarchist writing a book called Progress? That’s a twist. So, where does he even begin to build this case? It feels like a mountain to climb against the daily tide of bad news.

Olivia: He starts with the most fundamental things imaginable: food and sanitation. He has this fantastic opening line in his introduction: "Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory." Jackson: I love that. We all have this vague, golden-hued image of the past. But how bad were the 'good old days' really? Give me an example that actually hits home. Olivia: Well, Norberg shares a story from his own family history that is just chilling. He talks about the last great famine in Sweden, back in the winter of 1868. His ancestor, Eric Norberg, was a trader who managed to bring back sacks of wheat flour to his starving village. Jackson: A genuine hero. Olivia: Absolutely. But the story gets darker. He recounts a memory from a neighboring village, where a mother was weeping because she had nothing to feed her children. Three other starving children came to their door, begging. All the mother could offer was a few crumbs of bread, which the children dutifully shared. They then left for the next farm. Jackson: Oh no. I have a bad feeling about where this is going. Olivia: The next day, those three children were found dead in the snow, halfway between the two farms. People were so desperate they were mixing tree bark into their bread just to have something to chew on. This wasn't some distant, medieval tale; this was happening in a European country just 150 years ago. Jackson: That’s horrifying. It’s hard to even wrap your head around that level of desperation. It completely shatters any romantic notion of a simpler past. And I'm guessing it wasn't just food... what about basic hygiene? Olivia: You are right to guess that. If the food situation was dire, the sanitation was, in some ways, even worse. Norberg points to what’s known as the "Great Stink of London" in the summer of 1858. Jackson: The Great Stink? That does not sound pleasant. Olivia: It was an environmental catastrophe. The River Thames was essentially a massive, open sewer. All the city's waste—human, industrial, everything—was dumped directly into it. That summer was so hot that the river began to ferment in the heat, releasing a stench so powerful it was described as a "Stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and intolerable horrors." Jackson: Ineffable horrors. That’s quite a description. Olivia: It was so bad that it brought the government to a standstill. The curtains in the Houses of Parliament, which sits right on the river, had to be soaked in lime chloride just to mask the smell so politicians could work. It was this crisis, this unbearable stink, that finally forced them to build the modern sewer system that London still relies on today. Jackson: So, it's a brutal pattern: a crisis gets so bad it becomes impossible to ignore, and that forces the innovation that ultimately saves us. It's progress born from pure misery.

Olivia: And that pattern—of a problem getting worse before it gets better—is central to what is probably his most controversial argument, which is about the environment. Jackson: Okay, this is where I get skeptical. The dominant narrative is that industrial growth destroys the planet. It’s the engine of our environmental problems. How does Norberg possibly flip that? Olivia: He introduces an idea from economics called the Environmental Kuznets Curve. The theory goes like this: as a country begins to industrialize, pollution gets much worse. They prioritize growth over everything else. But once that country reaches a certain level of wealth and stability, two things happen: it has the money to invest in cleaner technology, and its citizens, no longer worried about basic survival, start demanding a cleaner environment. Jackson: So, wealth isn't the enemy of the environment; it's a precondition for saving it? Olivia: Exactly. He uses London's air as a perfect example. After the Great Stink came the Great Smog of 1952. For four days, the city was enveloped in a toxic, coal-fueled smog that killed an estimated 12,000 people. It was a direct result of industrial-age pollution. But today? After decades of wealth-driven regulation and technological shifts, London's air is cleaner than it has been since the Middle Ages. Jackson: That makes sense for local pollutants like smog or a dirty river. You can see it, you can smell it, and a rich country can fix it. But what about the big one: climate change? CO2 doesn't follow that curve. It’s a global, invisible problem. This is where critics often point out that Norberg, being from a libertarian think tank, might be downplaying the issue. Olivia: That's the perfect challenge, and it's a crucial one. Norberg doesn't deny that climate change is a massive, existential threat. His argument is about the solution. He says that forcing the developing world to halt economic growth in the name of the climate would be a humanitarian disaster, trapping billions in poverty. Jackson: Right, you can't tell someone who can't feed their family that they can't have cheap energy. Olivia: Precisely. So, for Norberg, the answer isn't to stop progress. It's to accelerate the kind of progress that gives us solutions. He argues that only prosperous, technologically advanced societies can invent and afford to implement things like next-generation solar, fusion power, or carbon capture technologies. The wealth and innovation generated by growth are our only real tools to tackle the problem. Jackson: So the engine of the problem is also the engine of the solution. It's a very high-stakes bet on human ingenuity, banking on us to invent our way out of the corner we've backed ourselves into.

Olivia: Exactly. And that high-stakes bet brings us to the final, crucial piece of the puzzle. If all this progress is real, if we've made these incredible leaps, why are we all so convinced the world is falling apart? Why did two-thirds of those people in the survey think poverty had doubled? Jackson: Yeah, it’s a mood. I feel it every day. I scroll through the news, and my shoulders tense up. It feels almost irresponsible to be optimistic. Like you're not paying attention. Olivia: Norberg argues there are a few powerful forces at play, and the first is the very nature of news. He quotes an economist who says, "Things that happen in an instant are mostly bad." An earthquake, a plane crash, a terrorist attack—those are events. They make headlines. Jackson: But progress is slow. It’s a process. Olivia: Exactly. You'll never see a breaking news alert that says, "Child mortality in Botswana decreased by another .005% today." Gradual improvement is invisible to the news cycle, which creates a systematically distorted picture of the world. Jackson: That makes so much sense. The news isn't a reflection of the state of the world; it's a reflection of the most dramatic things that happened in the last 24 hours. Olivia: The second reason is our own psychology. Norberg points to the well-documented negativity bias. Our brains are wired to be hyper-aware of threats. As he puts it, "bad is stronger than good." Jackson: I've definitely felt that. You can get ten compliments and one piece of criticism, and what do you fixate on all day? The criticism. Olivia: It’s an evolutionary hangover. Our ancestors who obsessed over the rustle in the grass were more likely to survive than the ones who were admiring the sunset. And the third factor, which I find hilarious, is simple nostalgia. We have a tendency to romanticize the past, especially our own youth. Jackson: Oh, the "music was better back in my day" argument. Olivia: Precisely. Norberg quotes Grandpa Simpson, who perfectly captures this: "I used to be with it, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now, what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me." Jackson: That's brilliant and painfully true. We mistake our own aging and our own fading relevance for the decline of civilization itself. It's a profound form of narcissism, really.

Olivia: So when you put all those pieces together, Norberg's argument is that we've achieved this incredible, unprecedented escape from the historical norms of famine, disease, and poverty. But the very structure of our media and the wiring of our brains make it almost impossible for us to see it clearly. Jackson: It’s like we're living in a palace that humanity has spent centuries building, but we're all standing in a corner, staring at a crack in the wall, and absolutely convinced the whole thing is about to collapse. The book isn't saying there are no cracks—he's clear that climate change is a huge one—but it's asking us to at least step back and acknowledge the palace for a moment. Olivia: And his final warning is against complacency. He stresses that progress is not inevitable or automatic. It's the result of messy, difficult work—of scientists, innovators, and brave individuals who fought for the freedom to try new things in new ways. He closes with that timeless quote from Isaac Newton: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Jackson: So the takeaway isn't just a simplistic 'don't worry, be happy.' It's something more like, 'understand how we got here so we can fiercely protect the systems—like free inquiry, trade, and individual liberty—that allow us to keep moving forward.' That feels like a much more powerful and responsible kind of optimism. Olivia: I love that framing. A responsible optimism. For our listeners, maybe the challenge this week is to try and spot one piece of 'slow progress' news. Something that won't ever make the headlines but shows a quiet, gradual improvement in the world. A new scientific paper, a local initiative, a positive data trend. Jackson: That's a great idea. Find a story that shows the world getting 0.005% better. Share what you find with us on our social channels. We'd love to see what you come up with. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.