Global trends over time – apart from climate, is almost everything else about to get better?

Some ideas to share with current London-based Social Science PhD students. We may be slowing down as a species. And, if so, we may not just be slowing down in terms of how many children we have, but in almost everything else we do other than the rise in global temperatures we live with. If this is true – what does it mean? And what measurements suggest it is true? Or is it just an artefact of measuring almost any aspect of our lives – that not long after we begin to measure something, the rate of change in that something appears to decelerate?

Danny Dorling speaking at the Economic and Social research Council (ESRC) London Doctoral Training programme (DTP)s’ Social Science Research Day: Social science to serve society: Communicating research to make an impact, Friends’ Meeting House, Euston, London, June 7th 2019.

Are we now slowing down?