Pigeons come home to roost
My earliest fears were of nuclear war. Born during the cold war, I was afraid, especially at night whenever a bright light flooded my room. Was that the flash of a nuclear explosion? Was the catastrophic shockwave about to hit? No - just a car turning in the street - its headlights flashing past my window. I was not yet 10 when I became aware that scientists were starting to predict climate change. This worrying prospect was ignorantly laughed off by one of my primary school teachers, who nonchalantly said it would be nice to have warm summers. Concern about the destruction of the ozone layer came next.
Optimism flowered during my late teens. There were signs the world was becoming a better and more tolerant place. The fall of the Berlin wall and the subsequent break up of the Soviet Union made the spectre of nuclear war fade. International bans on CFCs began the healing of the ozone layer, and raised the hope that nations might cooperate to stop climate change. During my early 20s there was a growing acceptance of diversity, a move towards multiculturalism, and the feeling that national borders were becoming less relevant.
One day, in my late 20s, that optimism was wiped out and never returned. The pigeons had come home to roost. Consequences of the arbitrary partitioning of Arabia at the end of WWII, and the subsequent proxy wars fought between the USA and the Soviets in the Middle East. For decades planes had been hijacked and the passengers held to ransom, but in 2001 there were no demands - instead the hijacked planes were deliberately crashed into buildings. Fear of terrorism spread around the world. Intolerance grew. Wars followed.
Through my 30s my concerns grew to encompass exponential population growth, pollution, climate change, sea level rises, food insecurity, drinking water shortages, and ironically peak oil.
In my 40s I saw the election of populist leaders. Protectionism. Nationalism. Racism. Them and Us. This re-emergence of tribal identity - the collective subconscious return to a survivalist mentality?
The news in the last 12 months has had a tinge of the biblical. War, mass refugee exoduses, huge wildfires, widespread flooding, plagues of locusts.
Now we face the pestilence, Coronavirus, against which we are as defenceless as our grandparents were against the 1918 Spanish Influenza, or our ancestors were against the Black Death of the 1300s.
Our medical expertise can only give us a little extra time for our immune systems to generate antibodies. Meanwhile we quarantine ourselves, to slow the spread of the disease, to gain time for our scientists to develop a vaccine or a treatment.
This feels like the beginning.
Optimism flowered during my late teens. There were signs the world was becoming a better and more tolerant place. The fall of the Berlin wall and the subsequent break up of the Soviet Union made the spectre of nuclear war fade. International bans on CFCs began the healing of the ozone layer, and raised the hope that nations might cooperate to stop climate change. During my early 20s there was a growing acceptance of diversity, a move towards multiculturalism, and the feeling that national borders were becoming less relevant.
One day, in my late 20s, that optimism was wiped out and never returned. The pigeons had come home to roost. Consequences of the arbitrary partitioning of Arabia at the end of WWII, and the subsequent proxy wars fought between the USA and the Soviets in the Middle East. For decades planes had been hijacked and the passengers held to ransom, but in 2001 there were no demands - instead the hijacked planes were deliberately crashed into buildings. Fear of terrorism spread around the world. Intolerance grew. Wars followed.
Through my 30s my concerns grew to encompass exponential population growth, pollution, climate change, sea level rises, food insecurity, drinking water shortages, and ironically peak oil.
In my 40s I saw the election of populist leaders. Protectionism. Nationalism. Racism. Them and Us. This re-emergence of tribal identity - the collective subconscious return to a survivalist mentality?
The news in the last 12 months has had a tinge of the biblical. War, mass refugee exoduses, huge wildfires, widespread flooding, plagues of locusts.
Now we face the pestilence, Coronavirus, against which we are as defenceless as our grandparents were against the 1918 Spanish Influenza, or our ancestors were against the Black Death of the 1300s.
Our medical expertise can only give us a little extra time for our immune systems to generate antibodies. Meanwhile we quarantine ourselves, to slow the spread of the disease, to gain time for our scientists to develop a vaccine or a treatment.
This feels like the beginning.
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