Happy New Year?

2020 was undoubtedly a difficult one. Understandably there is a lot of sentiment about this year being better. And in some ways, I’m sure it will be. There are multiple vaccines being distributed (although we still have the worst death rate in the entire world) and the Orange Menace is gone, although there is no sign of the conditions that made far right populists able to attain power so easily both over there and over here going anywhere anytime soon. Moaning about news outlets filtering everything through an ideological filter is pretty much the sum total of what I do on here, but it’s still the reason why nobody can see eye to eye – nobody knows what the actual truth is, just what the owners of the news media they consume want them to think the truth is.

Even when a concerted effort is made to appear balanced, the curse of false equivalency rears its head. Take the BBC, insisting on hearing ‘both sides’ on every issue from climate change to COVID, even when there isn’t really a ‘both sides’ to it at all – just what is true and what is not. It’s damaged the corporation’s credibility to the point where those on the left see it as little more than a state-sponsored Tory mouthpiece and those on the other side of the political divide rant about it being biased against them, leaving basically everyone to consider the news and political coverage not worth paying attention to. And they’d be absolutely right. This piece by the Byline Times sums it up better than I can.

The thing is, I don’t think 2020 being largely shite is a freak occurrence. I think it’s a symptom. I think we’ve been warned for decades that the way we live, the way we consume, will rob the world of its ability to support us, and I think that’s what’s happening. I think the consistent warming of the planet (we’re up about 1.2 degrees on average and 1.5 is where things start getting cataclysmic) is beginning to break down the weather and ecological systems we rely on. I think the flooding and the fires and the other indicators of climate change will continue to get worse. I think there might be other, more deadly pandemics on the way. I think we’re at the point where our species’ consistent excess is starting to come back around and demand we start reaping all the sewing we’ve been doing.

That’s not to say I think we should all give up. Things are turning around, albeit too slowly. We might yet be able to secure some kind of future that isn’t apocalyptic, but it’s going to be touch and go for a few decades.

Wish us luck.

Occasional feature: Ending with a song loosely related to the post (or more like a lyric I can take out of context and loosely relate to the post):

Queens of the Stone Age: …Like Clockwork: “Most of what you see my dear, is worth letting go, because not everything that goes around comes back around you know. One thing that is clear: It’s all downhill from here.”