SCABs

Watching the trees roll by – By @laurenbodiam

By Lauren Bodiam

 

Watching the trees roll by

Quite literally as I write this first part of my SCAB I’m sat in a cafe in New Cross watching newly discarded tress roll down the hill causing havoc on the road. There are cars swerving, people pocking their head out of the shop just watching this ordeal. Nobody goes to stop it. Drivers are angry and this is the best thing I have watched of 2019.

While the paragraph above seems like some sort of introduction its not the introduction for what I’m about to write, it was a moment my focus shifted. I have never been fond of the newspaper. I read it daily on my commute to SCA and everyday I flick through the endless stories and articles that position the world we live to doom and gloom. I have a notepad that fills up with never ending problem. It can sometimes feel we are in a world where there is not much progress, one that is progressively is getting worse. I certainly feel it. It feels rare, I cant remember the last article that has been positive.

Brexit, NHS cuts, Stabbings all made headlines this week and throughout the past year we have been filled with stories of war, environmental impact, housing crisis, wage, inequality. Whether or not the world is really getting worse, the news certainly makes us think that it is. Perhaps not on every single measure, or every single year, but step by step, year by year, the world is improving. In the past two centuries, life expectancy has more than doubled and although the world faces huge challenges, we have made progress. Bad things can happen quickly where as good things are built over time. A lot of our ‘good’ news is too slow to even qualify as news.

As we are still in the beginning of 2019, heres a little review of the good ‘news’ of 2018. 25% of the energy we used came from renewables up from the year before and set to rise. Marine areas have started to get more protected, thanks blue planet. More women hold share government seats worldwide and more young girls are being educated There’s still much to do for women’s equality. There’s also much more to do for LGBTQ rights. The Indian Supreme Court decriminalises homosexuality and Same-sex marriage becomes legal in Jersey among others.

What would life be like if we just had positive news? I certainly feel that we would have a more positive outlook, feel a little more secure. However, If we weren’t exposed to the bad news would we feel the need to solve these problems. Bad news makes headlines its what gets us talking, its remembered and repeated through papers worldwide. But it is precisely this that get us fired up ignite us at our very core. Right now there are tonnes of people in their bedrooms, research centres, offices working on the problems of today. Organs are being printed and tested through 3D printing, Spider silk is being tested in fashion to create more ethical clothing and membranes being developed to provide safe drinking water, among many more.

In a sense bad news creates good. To be able to get a balance we should keep track of our progress so we know that what is being done is making a impact.

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