1. Caldwell Zoo parties for the planet at Earth Day event
2. A greener way to do business on Earth Day
3. Pope: Earth’s water must be protected, available to everyone
4. Clean-water advocate takes Earth Day swim at Superfund site
5. Obama sounds alarm on climate damage in Earth Day visit to Florida Everglades

Now that we have Earth Day (April 22) out of the way, how about a People Day? Can we celebrate all the good things people have achieved, for themselves, for those less fortunate, and even for the environment.

In doing so, we should thank the same benefactor that has given us ever-improving Earth Day celebrations — capitalism.

Let’s take poverty, the thing that has killed more human beings than wars. Researcher Max Roser, of the Oxford Martin School, says global capitalism is directly responsible for there being less poverty now than at any point in history.

“In the past only a small elite lived a life without poverty,” he says. “Since the onset of industrialization — and as a consequence of this, economic growth, the share of people living in poverty started decreasing and kept on falling ever since.”

Real improvements in the human condition began at the start of the 19th Century.

“In 1820, the vast majority of people lived in extreme poverty and only a tiny elite enjoyed higher standards of living,” Roser says. “Economic growth over the last 200 years completely transformed our world and poverty fell continuously over the whole two last centuries. This is even more remarkable when we consider that the population increased seven-fold over the same time (which in itself is a consequence of increasing living standards and decreasing mortality — especially of infants and children — around the world). Yet, the exact opposite happened. In a time of unprecedented population growth we managed to lift more and more people out of poverty.”

How dramatic has the change been? In 1820, about 95 percent of the world’s population lived in poverty. By 1992, using the same measure, the number was down to 51 percent.

Using the more precise definition of poverty as “living on $1.25 per day or less,), in 1981, 53 percent of the world lived in poverty. By 2011, that number was down to 17 percent.

It’s important to note that poverty is rising in many places — where capitalism is retreating: parts of Africa, for example, and closer to home, in Venezuela.

It’s not just researchers like Roser who say capitalism has improved the human condition. One of the wealthiest, and arguably the most publicly compassionate rock star in the world, Bono, lead singer of U2, defended capitalism in a 2013 speech at Georgetown University.

“Aid is just a stop-gap,” says the musician, who has made a second career of winning foreign aid for impoverished nations. “Commerce — entrepreneurial capitalism — takes more people out of poverty than aid. … In dealing with poverty here and around the world, welfare and foreign aid are a Band-Aid. Free enterprise is a cure.”

Is capitalism perfect? Of course not. But like Winston Churchill’s claim about democracy, surely capitalism is the worst system — except for all the others that have been tried.

The history is clear. People are much better off now than they ever have been. People live better and longer. And there’s one undeniable reason for this —capitalism.

Happy People Day.