Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

FACT QUESTION 12
How many people in the world have some access to electricity?
A: 20 percent
B: 50 percent
C: 80 percent
Electricity is a basic need, which means that the vast majority—almost
everyone on Levels 2, 3, and 4—already has it. Still, just one person in four
gets the answer right. (The full country breakdown is in the appendix.) The
correct answer is the most positive, as usual: 80 percent of people have some
access to electricity. It’s unstable and there are often power outages, but the
world is getting there. One inauguration after another. Home by home.
So let’s be realistic about what the 5 billion people in the world who still
wash their clothes by hand are hoping for and what they will do everything
they can to achieve. Expecting them to voluntarily slow down their economic
growth is absolutely unrealistic. They want washing machines, electric lights,
decent sewage systems, a fridge to store food, glasses if they have poor
eyesight, insulin if they have diabetes, and transport to go on vacation with
their families just as much as you and I do.
Unless you are willing to forgo all these things and start hand-washing your
jeans and your bedsheets, why should you expect them to? Instead of finding
someone to blame and expecting them to take responsibility, what we need in
order to save the planet from the huge risks of climate change is a realistic
plan. We must put our efforts into inventing new technologies that will enable
11 billion people to live the life that we should expect all of them to strive for.
The life we are living now on Level 4, but with smarter solutions.
Who Should You Blame?

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It’s not the boss or the board or the shareholders who are to blame for the
tragic lack of research into the diseases of the poorest. What do we gain from
pointing our fingers at them?
Similarly, resist the urge to blame the media for lying to you (mostly they
are not) or for giving you a skewed worldview (which mostly they are, but
often not deliberately). Resist blaming experts for focusing too much on their
own interests and specializations or for getting things wrong (which
sometimes they do, but often with good intentions). In fact, resist blaming any
one individual or group of individuals for anything. Because the problem is
that when we identify the bad guy, we are done thinking. And it’s almost
always more complicated than that. It’s almost always about multiple
interacting causes—a system. If you really want to change the world, you
have to understand how it actually works and forget about punching anyone
in the face.