As 2009 draws to a close (about 4.5 hours left as I write), I was considering posting a ‘zero’ review of the decade. But then I realised that that is the cheeky way every other media organisation pads out its offering/coverage in the quiet end of year lull, when many staffers are on their hols. So, bucking the trend slightly, I thought I would give you a quick preview of the next decade from my humble HZH perspective. For climate change, it’s an important 10 years ahead (and more). Don’t let the ‘climate gate’ conspiracy-theorists, or those rather strangely enthusiastic but nonetheless passionate and I hope basically good fellows at Infowars.com deviate your thoughts on this.
We do need to do something. And it needs to be big. So I predict that there will be a considerable amount of conflicting messages floating around in the foreseeable future, just as in the past. I also predict that the various targets that have been set for ‘zeroing’ the planet’s carbon output are at risk of being missed, and probably will be. Politicians will say, on Radio 4′s Today Programme and elsewhere, ‘I told you so’. I also predict that the media will moan about the ‘cost’ of being/going ‘green’ and the zero carbon housing that has already been built will be ‘outed’ in a shock Sun newspaper expose that reveals exclusively that some of these dwellings are, in fact, not ‘zero’ at all. This will be supported by quotes from a mad scientist who looks vaguely like Einstein, who will eventually appear on ‘Britian’s Got Talent’.
‘He’ will get the Christmas number one single in the UK charts at some point in the next decade. And then he will be revealed as actually being a woman, who will then join the ‘Loose Women’ team as a regular and possibly go on to host ITV’s ‘This Morning’ with that bloke with the silver hair. Basically, the next decade will be a bit like the last decade. As usual, for those not interested in making the effort to look a little further beyond their comfort zone, it will be full of all the usual ‘stuff’. Great! However, maybe it’s worth making a New Year’s resolution to dig a little deeper, go a couple of yards beyond the usual nine, peek into things with a tad more effort than normal and form some opinions – or even better – get online and join a debate that you feel passionate about and let people know how YOU feel about things that MATTER and that you CARE about. If that happens to be climate change, you’re welcome here. If it’s not, you still will be – but there are plenty of other places out there in the digital world where you can participate and have your say. Join in. Engage. It’s a great, liberating thing to do. It’s powerful. And you CAN make a difference. Happy New Year everyone, and thanks for the support with HZH in 2009. We’ll be back in 2010 and beyond with a new site, some campaigns and more to say!
