‘Stay Positive — The World is Better than We Think’ event at Mt. Laurel Library on Dec. 17
The free event will focus on humanity’s advances across the globe in recent decades.
According to the International Energy Agency, the share of people with access to electricity across the globe in 1991 was 72 percent.
As of 2014, that figure had increased to 85 percent.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in 1970, 28 percent of people around the world were undernourished.
As of 2015, that figure had decreased to 11 percent.
According to the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, in the year 1800, 44 percent of children around the world died before their fifth birthday.
As of 2016, that figure had decreased to about 4 percent.
These are just some of the types of positive trends Ed Cohen hopes to point to on Monday, Dec. 17, when he hosts an event at the Mt. Laurel Library entitled “Stay Positive — The World is Better than We Think.”
Cohen, a founding member of the Mt. Laurel Green Team, said his presentation is based on the book “Factfulness” by Hans Rosling,
Before his death in 2017, Rosling was a Swedish physician, statistician and academic who also served as a public speaker around the world.
According to Cohen, Rosling’s book uses data to show that trends concerning the quality of life around the globe have actually been increasing in positive ways in recent decades, despite the potentially cynical conclusions average people might immediately jump to when they’re asked to think about the world today.
With that in mind, Cohen said he wanted to host his event to help members of the public appreciate humanity’s advances in recent decades.
“It’s easy to get discouraged by some of the bad news we hear — it can be paralyzing,” Cohen said. “But what I wanted to share is that there are a lot of positive things in the world that are also happening.”
Similar to the data points stated above, Cohen plans to open his event by quizzing attendees on various trends around the world related to issues of equality in education, war, ecological concerns, culture, technology and more.
“We have these preconceived notions, but the way we see the world is not the way it really is,” Cohen said. “It used to be ‘the west and the rest’ but the rest of the world has really caught up to us in many ways.”
From his work with the Mt. Laurel Green Team and dealing with sustainability issues, Cohen said that it’s easy to see why average people might sometimes get overwhelmed when thinking about the daunting challenges that face the world.
Cohen also notes that since negative news is often the only type of news to extend beyond a country’s borders and reach other countries around the world, it can sometimes seem to average citizens as if only negative events are occurring around the world.
With his upcoming event, Cohen said the event would focus on training attendees to gain a new perspective on how they absorb information to better process what they see and hear on social media or in the news media.
“Because there’s so much information available, you kind of have to put up these filters,” Cohen said.
Cohen’s “Stay Positive — The World is Better than We Think” event will take place on Dec. 17 at the Mt. Laurel Library from 6 to 8:45 p.m.
To learn more, visit www.mountlaurellibrary.org.
