Reasons to be cheerful
IT’S still the season of goodwill, so, at a time when there’s so much doubt and gloom, Agromenes has determined to celebrate what went right in 2018. First and foremost was our remembrance of the Armistice and the end of the First World War, which has reminded us of our unparalleled good fortune at living through the longest period of peace Northern Europe has seen for centuries. Since 1945, almost three generations of young men have not had to answer the call to fight to defend their homeland.
It was that same anniversary that drew attention to the concern at that time for the loss of woodland in Britain, one of the earliest campaigns of the nascent environmental movement. This year, we can celebrate the fact that Britain now has its largest woodland cover since medieval times.
What’s more, in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, he committed the Government to going still further by introducing a scheme that will support tree planting by paying for the carbon sequestrated for many years to come.
On the environmental theme, in the Government’s first ever Green Week, the Defra Secretary asked the Climate Change Committee to chart the necessary course for the UK to reach towards the net-zero emissions that our signing of the Paris Agreement makes necessary.
This was particularly appropriate in 2018, the year our emissions fell to the lowest level since 1894 and when, from April 21, we used no coal for generation for 76 hours.
The country that led the world into the Industrial Revolution is showing the way to a new clean, green revolution and we’re seeing the new jobs that come from that change, which severs the link between emissions and economic growth.
The year 2018 should be celebrated as the one in which, at long last, we were able to announce a cheap and effective vaccine to counter one of the world’s persistent killers: cholera. We’re also able to predict that leprosy, where the number of cases is already down by 87% since 1985, will be eradicated in 2020.
That terrible disease, such a scourge and so potent a symbol of the suffering of the developing world, will become a matter of history. Good news, too, about a modern killer, AIDS, deaths from which this year halved compared with 2015 and where at least half the sufferers are receiving treatment.
All that is the result of international efforts, scientists, doctors, governments and aid agencies from around the world working together to reduce human misery, but one major breakthrough was fundamentally a British initiative. For years, campaigners had been warning of the damage done to the oceans by Man’s addiction to plastic. Only the committed listened. Then came Blue Planet II and 92-year-old Sir David Attenborough.
Long after most have retired, this indefatigable campaigner determined to change the world. His unique skill at communicating complex matters simply and persuasively triumphed.
Suddenly, we got it: we understood the damage we are doing to the planet upon which our lives depend. There’s not a business in the world that hasn’t had to reconsider its use and attitude to plastics. No democratic government has been untouched and no great institution unaffected.
One man, using the resources of modern communications, has changed the course of history. As we worry about the problems instant media poses, in this case, we should also reflect on the opportunities it presents.
Therefore, this Christmastime, we might pause to count our blessings and say thank you for all that’s gone right in 2018.
One man, using modern communications, has changed the course of history