1. Steady
Our lives continued as they had been travelling: peacefully, uneventfully. The financial markets recovered, and ordinary citizens rallied and were empowered. Democracy was apparently stronger than any one person, even when a dangerous lunatic was in charge of the most powerful nation on earth.
2. Suboptimal
This was the time when climate change trends really started going backwards, refugees and illegal migrants in the US suffered as they were harshly discriminated against, and further instability in the world increased. ObamaCare was watered down, inequality grew even further globally and the US’s poor foreign policy and conflict choices made the world a less safe place.
That weekend in November when the girls and I all got sick, vomiting with diarrhoea, at the end of a year of almost crushing work, was actually a comparatively good period in our lives that we looked back on fondly.
3. Dire
As a result of unchecked climate change, heatwaves went up, tsunamis, floods and extremely hot fires became almost everyday events. Global food insecurity triggered even more wars and poverty, and mass inequality fractured the world. The problems the world had created were almost irreversible, and the younger generation despaired. ObamaCare was ceased, indirectly causing the premature deaths or terrible suffering of more tens of millions of Americans on the back of global misery, unprecedented refugee flows and the first time the life expectancy in the west had fallen in recent generations. An increase in the scale of the western world’s obesity and chronic disease epidemic was the least of the world’s problems, as ineffective public health policies continued, compounded by people eating even more out of an increased sense of disempowerment and dread.
I looked back on that year of 2016 as being the last year in which I could hope that our children’s futures would be bright.
4. Oblivion
4. Unpredicted
Which of these trends will prove to be right at the end of my life, should I live another 43 years? What does history and the historians tell us, and how can we adapt that knowledge for a modern age? One thing is sure: we must all step up and become more active global citizens. If each of us do not walk the talk, we are heading for the second, third or fourth scenario. Even I in my busy life need to find the time to step up in a myriad of little ways and call on our leaders, and talk to our friends and acquaintances, to shape a world of equality, compassion, and imagination, informed by science. We need to be present in our history so that we write the next vital chapter with hope and purpose.
Will you speak out in your daily life, and call our own leaders to account, with me?
