I WILL remember 2023 as another year of sadness and anger, and not just because of my personal loss. Constant alarming news on the environment coupled to a political class still largely unable or unwilling to heed the warnings from scientists frequently make my job a gloomy place.
This is especially so in the UK, where our shopping trolley of a government has veered alarmingly to the right on a lot of what ex-prime minister David Cameron – recently resurrected as foreign secretary – once called “green crap”. Pledges to max out North Sea oil and gas; motorist-friendly policies; row-backs on net zero; crackdowns on environmental protesters. Those in power obviously think these are vote winners, showing a depressing eagerness to seek short-term gains by dismissing or denying long-term problems. One of my big hopes for 2024 is that they are proved wrong at the ballot box.
Fighting back against the green crap is all part of the war on woke, another thing that has made me despair this year. Somehow, attempts to make the world a fairer place for everyone and a greener one for nature have been weaponised by those for whom the status quo is just fine.
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I am a white, middle-aged, home-owning, heterosexual, able-bodied male (he/him), so the war on woke rarely touches my life directly. But I’m also a cyclist and a tofu muncher and I live in north London, so anti-woke politicians really wind me up. But that is what they are trying to do, so I will try to be zen about it.
I have learned, though, how casual, careless use of language can offend. I am also a SOBS – a survivor of bereavement by suicide. There is a trigger phrase in that community: “committed suicide”. This is a throwback to the time when suicide was a crime. It isn’t any more, but the phrase has stubbornly stuck. When I hear people say my wife committed suicide, I have to bite my tongue and then gently point out that many SOBS find it offensive. Completed, please. Or just plain English: she killed herself.
Some people will probably regard this as “wokeness” and yet another example of how “you can’t say anything these days”. But I hope it demonstrates that being anti-woke can be unnecessarily hurtful. It doesn’t cost anything to be sensitive to others’ feelings. It is a small thing. But it gives me a taste of what LGBTQ+ people, those with disabilities, ethnic minorities, environmental protesters and other marginalised groups must feel when their hard won gains or lifestyles are smeared as “wokeness”.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m privileged to do the job I do and I will keep on doing it. And there have been highs among the lows. I travelled a lot this year, though narrowly avoided a few hairy situations. I was in Morocco just before the earthquake, Israel just before the Hamas attack and Iceland just before the volcano. I recently spent a few days in Dorset. My advice: avoid this English county, something bad is going to happen there.
On top of that, I think our rivers campaign helped move the issue up the agenda. Our Rewilding Weekender was great, not least because I got to meet so many of our wonderful readers. Ditto żěè¶ĚĘÓƵ Live. And I landed a prestigious journalism award.
I write this as COP28 begins in Dubai. Hopes aren’t high, but they spring eternal. There is still time to avert a triple catastrophe of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Just don’t get me started on the US presidential election.
