Heaven help us – it’s 2017. Donald Trump will take office, the British government will lay down the terms of an impossible-looking Brexit, Marine Le Pen will contest the French presidency with a moderate chance of winning and, most importantly, we will see how a number of critical climate feedback loops, including the astonishing temperature anomalies in the Arctic, play out through the world’s weather systems. Cheery prospects all round.
Every week, I’m asked why I don’t despair. But sometimes I do. Crises of the kind that I’ve warned of for 30 years are materialising everywhere. The frustration of witnessing the incompetence, short-termism and self-interest of our governments, as they periodically look our long-running problems in the eye only to turn away and shrug their shoulders, is sometimes overwhelming. Playing Cassandra is no fun at all.
Perilous as these times are, it’s worth remembering that the political systems at risk almost everywhere are deeply flawed. The prospect of losing anything familiar is frightening, but even if we could return to the halcyon days of Tony Blair’s wars, Bill Clinton’s love affair with Wall Street, Barack Obama’s mass surveillance of US citizens and David Cameron’s assaults on the poor, would we wish to?
Out of our multiple crises come opportunities to build new systems more responsive to the needs of people and the rest of the living world than those we endure today. There is little in the past to which we can return: neither neoliberalism nor Keynesianism equip us for the challenges of the 21st century.
I’ll be devoting much of the year to testing out proposals for new political and economic systems with Guardian readers, and I hope you will let me know what you think. And if you have a friend or family member who wants to be part of this debate and part of the Guardian’s future, please encourage them to become a Member and join us.
Let’s not allow the global wrecking party to determine our futures. Here’s to a scary but hopeful 2017.
