It all began with...

How does life compare now with when you were younger? Is it getting better?

"The Blue Marble": Earth as seen from outer space, taken by the crew of Apollo 17 on 7 December 1972

We all have different priorities, interests and circumstances, so when and how we realise that change is happening can vary.

Politics and power

"It all began with Reagan", Thom Hartmann sometimes says. And here in the UK it started a couple of years before that, when Maggie Thatcher became prime minister, though arguably Reagan led the way earlier when he was governor of California. Both espoused policies which made life better for the rich and worse for the rest of us, at a time when improvements in technology could and should have made life better for everyone.

Every generation and every individual has a point in time when they first perceive things as getting worse (or better). For example, Reagan crushed PATCO and Thatcher crushed the miners' union, leading to a rise in inequality, which had a detrimental effect on the conditions of working people. While I noticed a switch to a 'greed is good' attitude under Thatcher, I was not sufficiently politically aware before her to immediately understand all the differences she made.

But really, it all started with the advent of agriculture. This enabled some people to store food and withhold it from others, giving them an economic advantage, which even the costs of protecting their stores did not negate. Because the poor were desperate, the rich were able to get cheap labour to build their castles and fill their armies. People who controlled salt supplies also did very well, as it was essential for preserving food. Salzburg grew rich on salt mining, for example. But it is not the ones who actually work the land who tend to benefit. From serfs in the past to modern farmers who are squeezed by big supermarkets or are bought out by big ag, many are driven out of farming and some commit suicide, for example in the UK, the U.S. and India. Arab Spring was triggered by Mohamed Bouazizi, whose uncle lost his farm to a bank.

The next major change for me was the advent of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. I get it that with the unions (and their funds) decimated, they had to seek money from corporations. Politicians weren't able to raise money on the internet then the way that Bernie Sanders has since done in the U.S. But did they have to wholeheartedly embrace Reaganomics, as Bill Clinton did in the U.S. once he was elected? Prior to then I had viewed Tories being better for the rich and corporations, and Labour being better for the rest of us. Now, Tories and Republicans have gone off the scale, dragging Labour and Democrats to the right with them, with the very rich dangling money in front of both. Workers are more poorly represented than ever.

Liars and incompetents

It was George W. Bush and Tony Blair who made me realise just how amoral some of our politicians can be, lying us into the Iraq war. Since then the lying has become more blatant, with Trump's 30,573 false or misleading claims total in office. These days Keir Starmer seems to me to be Tory 2.0, and labour is not represented by the Labour Party. He is continuing the trend begun by Blair for policies, though perhaps not for lying. Boris Johnson was also very economical with the truth, and I (and others) find myself refuting false claim after false claim by Tory politicians, including Rishi Sunak.

But it started earlier than that, for example with Nixon's treason extending the Vietnam war, his bribes and Watergate; Reagan delaying the release of the Iran hostages so that Carter would lose the election to him; Reagan's Iran-Contra Affair". (For more detail see here). The history of the human race is filled with tales of treachery. It's just more blatant at the moment.

Their deliberate lies or willful ignorance cost lives - the tens of thousands killed in the Iraq war or those of the excess deaths from COVID attributable to government misinformation or wrong policies, such as Trump's 40% (the hydroxychloroquine he touted caused 17,000 deaths alone). Britain sent patients from hospitals to care homes without testing for COVID and many elderly and their carers died. Its test and trace system failed expensively. And the amount of corruption giving PPE contracts to cronies with no experience of providing it was mind-boggling, leading to massive fraud and unusable or unsupplied PPE.

There is now quite a big cohort of voters who have only known Tory governments. They may not be aware that as recently as 1984 (the miner's strike) workers had more say in their pay and conditions. Or that in 2014, the NHS was ranked the best healthcare system in the world. By 2021 it was down to 4th. The Tories want to make it more like the American system, which came 11th out of 11.

Environment

I remember the days when after you went for a drive, you had to wash off all the insects that had splattered the windscreen and grille. Rachel Carson wrote about Silent Spring. Many bird species have declined since, though not all.

The changes in the weather are causing chaos for UK flora and fauna and farmers and there are likely to be more food shortages this year. Other shortages are due to the exceptional weather in Europe and further afield.

The pattern of diseases will change. For example, disease-bearing insects such as mosquitos may gain a foothold in Britain. As we exploit more old forest, disturbing its wildlife and exploiting it for meat, the more zoonotic diseases will do the rounds.

Agriculture was having some effect on the climate before the industrial revolution, and that effect is now on steroids, thanks to fertilizers and farm machinery and transport. Britain was once largely covered by forest, but now is largely a pattern of fields, which have grown larger to accommodate machinery. While this at first happened slowly enough for wildlife to adapt, since WW2 and thanks to global warming it has accelerated beyond many species' ability to cope. What will it look like in 50 years?

Economy

For some of us, the first shock was the 1973 oil crisis, when suddenly there were long queues (lines) at petrol (gas) stations and empty shelves. We realised just how fragile our systems actually are. Then we got over it and mostly forgot. Or the Financial crisis of 2007-08. For a new generation, it was the shortages due to COVID then the Ukraine war (and the price gouging that took advantage of them). And there is the growing realisation that climate change is going to make the situation worse. We may have to get used to shortages.

Previous generations have also experienced shocks, from the Black Death of the fourteenth century to the little ice age to the year without a summer of 1816. The difference with climate change is that there is a generation that can see it coming but often feel powerless to do anything about it. For all of us henceforth the new normal will become on average warmer and wilder and more uncertain. The period of relative stability which enabled mankind to thrive is coming to an end.

It is clear that long just in time inventory systems are no longer fit for purpose. With wars, terrorism, epidemics, bottlenecks (e.g. the 2021 Suez Canal obstruction) and climate change (e.g. the Panama canal too dry to handle all traffic), there is too much scope for disruption in this modern world. While international trade always has been important and always will be, with some countries having resources and climates that others don't, its use to find the cheapest price or labour is not sustainable. It also puts some countries at the mercy of others when they could be self sufficient in most things.

Britain has privatized many of its assets and brought in foreign countries to exploit our resources. It is very difficult to invest in its future as a result. The USA also sent much of its manufacturing overseas. Both buy a lot of goods from China and other cheaper, less environmentally friendly countries. (China is doing a lot of good stuff but it is not enough).

In the UK, a generation of young children have only ever known poverty thanks to Tory austerity.

War

There always has been war and I suspect there always will be, with more particularly over water and food and arable land. The generation that lived through World War II have mostly died or have long been retired now, but America experienced the Vietnam and Korean wars, though not on home soil.

Often, greed for resources or political power is behind wars. Leaders go to war to gain or keep control over oil and gas fields or pipelines or shipping routes. They hold on to islands which would have no value if not for war or rights to the surrounding seas or oil fields. Gaza has untapped gas. Ukraine is a large country with many untapped resources.

For the young people of Russia, Ukraine, Gaza and Israel, war - whether declared or not - has made life a lot worse for them. For others, war is not so near and many just ignore all of the many wars going on around the world.

When will mankind show some intelligence?

We have proved ourselves very good at exploitation, but very stupid when it comes to husbandry, in the widest sense of the word. Each generation has left the world in a poorer state for the next. Each generation tends to see only the differences since they first noticed change, which happens at different times and for different changes for each of us. It is difficult, therefore, to really understand just how much has changed in every facet of life over many years. But we really need to understand that despite some positive developments, particularly in technology that makes life more convenient for us, the general arc is in a downwards direction, and we need to dig in our heels.

For some in America things have been looking better since Biden beat Trump, but in Britain the Tories, puppets of the exploitative class, are still in power. And there is still a risk that that enemy of the environment and the poor, Donald Trump, might somehow win a second term.

The longer we leave things in this state, the more young people there will be who have never known different and who think that is the just way the way things are.

Whenever and however you realised that things could be better, now is the time to act.