THROUGHOUT this strange, scary but wierdly exhilarating year, an old saying has often popped into my head: 鈥淢ay you live in interesting times.鈥� This supposedly ancient Chinese curse 鈥� though no such expression actually exists in the Chinese language 鈥� is meant ironically. Perhaps it is derived from an actual Chinese saying: 鈥淏etter to be a dog in times of tranquillity than a human in times of chaos.鈥�
It has been chaos, but fascinating all the same, and I don鈥檛 yearn for tranquillity just yet. I have no desire to see yet more sacrifices made and losses endured, but we aren鈥檛 out of the woods yet and for somebody in my profession, 2020 has been a vintage year. In January, I was gearing up to write yet more features on environmental science, biodiversity and biomedicine. In February, I was seconded into 快猫短视频鈥榮 covid-19 editorial team and plunged into the biggest and fastest-moving science story the world has ever seen.
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I have spent the past 10 months frantically reporting, writing and commenting on the pandemic. My background is in biochemistry, so all those years studying genetics, virology, immunology and molecular biology have come in handy. I never expected to need them to report on an epoch-defining historic event.
I have also continued to write my monthly environment column, No planet B. To have such a platform is a privilege and responsibility, and I have tried to use it well. I have had plenty to work with 鈥� let鈥檚 not forget that the pandemic is also an environment story. Covid-19 is the Western world coming face to face with the biodiversity crisis for the first time.
That crisis is at crunch point, but even so, as we head into what will be an unusual Christmas period, I am feeling optimistic. It is increasingly clear that we will get a successful vaccine 鈥� I cannot overstate what an immense scientific triumph that will be 鈥� and once we have the pandemic under control, there is growing expectation that we will build back better.
As Nobel prizewinning economist Esther Duflo at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has pointed out, the pandemic is a 鈥渄ress rehearsal鈥� for the much greater challenge that is climate change. I think the world has performed the dress rehearsal better than expected, and there is now cause for confidence that we can meet other problems ahead.
The defeat and imminent defenestration of that one-man environmental wrecking ball, Donald Trump, also adds to my cautious optimism.
I am no Panglossian 鈥� no new dawn is ever as bright as we hope 鈥� but my feeling is that 2020-21 will come to be regarded as one of those turning points in history, like 1848, 1918 and 1945, when the old world order was swept away and something new emerged. New doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean better. But I believe it is possible. Then I will happily go back to being a dog in a time of tranquillity.
