I’ve been on a hiatus during the festive season, which admittedly felt a lot less festive than in previous years — a notion you can surely relate to. I’d like to share some thoughts with you, looking back to 2020 and forwards to 2021.

One of the themes in Dream Whisperer is the nearsightedness of man. We have difficulties coping with long-term issues and low-probability occurrences even if they represent high-impact threats. Nassim Taleb called the latter ‘Black Swans’ in his 2007 book. In 2020 we were hit by several of them.

There was a president in the US who behaved in a way inconceivable to the Founding Fathers. His actions laid bare the vulnerabilities of a democratic political system faced with a White House occupant’s aspiration to become a life-long despot. We’ve become inured to politicians not telling the truth. The barrage of blatant lies during this presidency was, however, astonishing. It proved a fact well known to demagogues since ancient times: If one repeats a lie over and over again, it will ultimately become truth to many. Plain lies sound more ‘sensible’ than the complex facts disproving them. Hard-to-follow ‘experts’ offering unwelcome views turn suspect.

Most countries have received the latest American election results with relief. However, the new president faces a daunting task restoring his nation’s international credibility. Trump drove home the message that a single administration can radically upset long-held policies, turning old allies into foes. Although Biden voters outnumbered Trump’s by seven million, Congress and Senate election results failed to disavow Republican policies. Every world leader knows that, in four years, a deeply divided American electorate may once again vote a would-be despot into power.

We live in a new paradigm where the US has ostentatiously abdicated its international role as a promoter of democratic ideals. It doesn’t matter that its track record is far from unblemished. What matters is that anti-democratic forces everywhere are scrambling to fill the void. Who expected, four years ago, the US to fold back on itself, retreating from international agreements on defence, world health, and climate protection, while riding a tidal wave of money-grubbing, bigotry, and white supremacism?

The EU has its own problems. Anti-democratic, nationalistic forces are looming darkly in many of its member states. EU-leadership hasn’t formulated an internationally accepted policy dealing with sharing immigration burdens from war-torn and poverty-stricken nations. When the situation in front-line countries like Greece and Italy required solidarity and empathy, most European nations looked the other way. The EU has missed an opportunity to show its greatness. Instead, it cowered in terror of the vilest undercurrents in its member states.

Brexit left most Europeans bewildered. A large section of the British people preferred a quaint notion of ‘sovereignty’ to being an influential EU powerhouse member. Immigration issues loomed large in the debate, but there’s little doubt that both Britain and the EU will be worse off after the separation. Nobody wins, notwithstanding Boris Johnson’s prediction of ‘sunlit uplands’. Again, demagogic lies had a field day over economic facts.

And then there’s Covid-19. After a tragic rollercoaster year demonstrated both political leaders’ ineptitude and the general public’s refusal to listen to reason, vaccinations are becoming available. We all hope for a return to normalcy, which will allow us to meet with our loved ones and travel, but we realise that 2021 will not yet be ‘normal’ by any means.

Covid-19 dominated our lives for the past nine months and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The pandemic proved that our policymakers cannot deal with more than one significant challenge at the time. In 2019, youthful demonstrators massively appealed to the politicians’ sense of responsibility towards future generations to deal forcefully with climate issues. In 2020, the climate was nary an issue that grabbed the headlines.

Still, the problem has not gone away, far from it. We can congratulate ourselves on lower carbon emissions over 2020, but if anything, reality has proven that it wasn’t enough to fight climate change. Moreover, during the second wave, the appetite for work from home was much lower. We simply won’t give up on our past way of life. As the virus recedes, our roads will be flooded with cars once again. Both leisure and business travellers are chomping at the bit to board planes for far-flung destinations. We did not sufficiently convert the fleets of large ocean vessels to low-emission technology. The deforestation of the Amazon has only increased in speed. The depletion of the seas goes on unabatedly. Covid-19 has been a boon for the plastics industry.

It remains to be seen how world leaders will address these issues in the coming years. The clock is ticking. I do not believe in a brave new world that has learnt all the necessary lessons from Covid-19. Old habits are hard to break. The current generations’ comfort risks outweighing the survival needs of future ones.

It’s easy to set oneself adrift on these gloomy reflections, but that would mean disregarding obvious facts. When the 1918-1919 flu pandemic had finished destroying people’s lives, it still lasted until 1945 before the first vaccine’s approval. Now, we have several effective vaccines at our disposal after a mere nine months. Science will provide us with the means to overcome many of our most pressing challenges. Drowning in pessimism is not an option.

However, it is the politicians’ and our responsibility to make and implement the right policy choices. We need to leave our world behind in a better shape than we’ve found it. There’s no doubt these choices will have significant consequences for our way of life. I wish for all of us that we’ll have the wisdom to accept that burden of responsibility and show our willingness to be part of the solution rather than the problem.