{"id":2745,"date":"2024-01-01T16:44:16","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T16:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uncharted-worlds.org\/blog\/?p=2745"},"modified":"2024-01-01T16:44:16","modified_gmt":"2024-01-01T16:44:16","slug":"new-year-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncharted-worlds.org\/blog\/2024\/01\/new-year-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

A mix of things and thoughts, for the coming year.<\/em><\/p>\n

Happy new year, everyone.<\/p>\n

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Overall I don’t feel optimistic about where the human race is headed.\u00a0 So it doesn’t feel<\/em> like a year that’s going to be happy.<\/p>\n

But I don’t want to put a 100% negative thing out into the world, so I’ve listed some cool stuff too!\u00a0 Let’s do “sources of dread” first, and then go on to that :-)<\/p>\n

Looming concerns<\/h2>\n

The NHS is in a precarious state.\u00a0 There are staff shortages, ambulance waiting times are bad, and anyone who has to go to hospital is quite likely to catch covid there if they didn’t already have it.\u00a0 Even the richest people in the UK are only a couple of unlucky moments away from a health disaster.<\/p>\n

Bigger scale, the climate forecasts suggest more floods and more heat waves.\u00a0 Over the next few years, there are likely to be more and more people across the world whose home becomes uninhabitable:\u00a0 through human-incompatible levels of heat, through famine, or through sea encroaching on land.<\/p>\n

I saw a post the other day alluding to a connection between climate change and Israel’s devastating bombing in Gaza.\u00a0 I thought about it, and I think the connection (or part of it) is land for people to live on.\u00a0 As more land gets eaten by the sea and\/or ruined, I think it’s likely there’ll be more humans killing humans as well.<\/p>\n

Careless choices<\/h2>\n

When I look at the state of the UK, to me the weird thing is how little of the bad stuff was actually practically necessary.\u00a0 Life is always uncertain, but we didn’t have to make it more<\/em> so!<\/p>\n

We didn’t have to lose so many NHS staff and care workers to Long Covid or death or burnout.\u00a0 We didn’t have to push away so many migrant NHS staff and care workers, via Brexit’s combination of new rules and making them unwelcome.\u00a0 Those were the results of choices by our government.<\/p>\n

Another choice was government people using the covid crisis as an opportunity to channel money to their mates – even when their mates were really not the people best placed to be doing the work.<\/p>\n

And going back a bit:\u00a0 I don’t remember the details, but I remember that Margaret Thatcher’s government had some role in removing<\/em> encouragements for renewable energy.<\/p>\n

Of course, lots of us didn’t<\/em> vote for the Tories.\u00a0 And quite a lot of us are still trying not to be part of helping the covid virus get around.\u00a0 But we still end up at the pointy end of these poor decisions.<\/p>\n

Going back even further, we’ve got the invention of companies as conscience-less entities whose only responsibility is to make money, fossil fuel companies trying to maintain their profits by deceiving us, and so on.<\/p>\n

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There are always good things happening too<\/strong>!\u00a0 Let’s cruise around a few of those.<\/p>\n

Climate\/energy good things<\/h2>\n
    \n
  • It looks as though 2023 was the first year when over 50% of the UK’s electricity came from renewables.\u00a0 (Not officially confirmed yet, but it must’ve been very close if not quite.)<\/li>\n
  • In the Netherlands, they’re even further along that path:\u00a0 sometimes they’ve got more renewable power available than they need to power the whole country!\u00a0 They’re exporting it!<\/li>\n
  • People are experimenting with combining solar power with agriculture:\u00a0 the solar panels are up high, giving shade to the crops or animals.<\/li>\n
  • Electric bikes are becoming more and more common.\u00a0 They need only a teeny weeny bit of power compared to cars, and for some disabled people they’re the best way of transport there is.<\/li>\n
  • Working from home is increasingly possible for some kinds of job these days.\u00a0 It suits some people, and reduces the amount of unnecessary travel.<\/li>\n
  • People-in-general are becoming more aware of climate upheavals as an important thing to be planning for & trying to reduce – though there’s still a long way to go on that front, and I think most people are unaware of how bad it’s likely to get.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Covid-related good things<\/h2>\n
      \n
    • There’s been some highly useful research into 222nm ultraviolet light as a way to zap viruses indoors.\u00a0 High-frequency UV was already in use for anti-viral purposes, for example in sterilising medical equipment.\u00a0 But most frequencies in that range aren’t safe for shining where there are humans – you’d get sunburn to your skin and eyes.\u00a0 222nm is an exception:\u00a0 researchers are reporting that a level of it which can kill viruses is also okay for humans’ skin and eyes.\u00a0 Progress!<\/li>\n
    • There’s been promising research into tech which can detect covid virus in the air in real time.\u00a0 So far, this only exists in, like, one chonky experimental machine in a lab – but what if, in a few years’ time, we could have covid breathalysers, or flu breathalysers?\u00a0 Or at least, there could be machines in hospitals which report in real time when there’s a virus floating in the air.<\/li>\n
    • Masks like the 3M Aura or iMask 3 are already good enough to cut the covid risk way down low, if you’re in a practical\/ social\/ financial position to be able to wear them.\u00a0 (Doesn’t solve going to the dentist, or needing to eat in hospital.)<\/li>\n
    • There are lots of places now where you can buy good air filters, if you can afford them.<\/li>\n
    • Some people already have access to on-the-spot home covid testing which, unlike the little “lateral flow tests”, is almost as reliable as the lab testing – although I’ve not found anywhere in the UK which is selling those units yet, and they’re expensive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Vaccine tech<\/h2>\n

      There’s also a prediction that we might have better covid vaccines via a different method in a few years’ time.<\/p>\n

      Unlike the current ones, which do reduce the risk of dying but still let you catch<\/em> it, these would supposedly be able to completely stop you catching it.<\/p>\n

      I must admit I’m fairly sceptical about that particular forecast.\u00a0 “I’ll believe it when it happens”.\u00a0 That’s not just because the first<\/em> vaccines were hyped up along those lines and then didn’t, but because I’ve seen reputable science people talking about how difficult a fully-ending-it vaccine would be for that kind of a virus.\u00a0 (I don’t know the full ins & outs of why – maybe something to do with how easily it mutates.)<\/p>\n

      However, I think it’s likely there’ll be some<\/em> advances in vaccine tech, which might help to knock covid back down if the political will were there.<\/p>\n

      Music<\/h2>\n

      2023 was a good year for me personally in terms of writing and music – two things which can still happen even when you’re not feeling well or can’t be out of bed for long, which I also had a lot of.<\/p>\n

      I finished & uploaded a recording of the song All of us<\/a>, which I’d written in 2022:<\/p>\n