Things have gotten better and progress has been made from times past, it just seems worse now because we have more access to information. We've come far, and have further to go!
And the climate change will help them. They are basically a team just that one of them doesn't know about the partnership and the other didn't choose it...
With students I like to use Gapminder as an example in statistics. And there sometimes I get the same reaction you see here in the comment section. Some people feel if you are showing the gains that means you want to stop improvement or that you don't take the struggles of people seriously.
I have no idea about psychology, so I don't know what's the reason.
The opposite is true, also. If you don't say something 100 % positive, people tend to assume you are in opposition. ;)