The Good of 2021

Currently, the news mostly suggests that the next year will not be so great. The media often tends to sensationalize the difficulties and does not pause to consider the positives. It is a fact that there is less world poverty than ever before, more children are now in school than at any time in the past and there is much less war globally. We are also continuously progressing towards inclusion and equality. Every small step forward has been a huge struggle, but it must not be forgotten how far we have come.

Society

There is a general hope that society will continue to become more tolerant. Any older members of the LGBTQ+ community remember the difference in tolerance from their time and now. In 2022, the UK is to host the first-ever global conference on LGBTQ+ rights in London. The “Safe To Be Me” event will be enormous, with people from all over the world getting together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first official London Pride marches. The aim of the conference is to promote equality globally, and the ministers attending hope “to make progress on legislative reform, tackling violence and discrimination, and insuring equal access to public services for LGBT people.”

In a similar way the growing neurodiversity movement can only be seen as social progress. The concept of neurodiversity is a sign of people opening their minds. With more information about what experts say affects up to 30% of the population, neurodivergent people are feeling understood and accepted. The world will hopefully make more of an effort to adapt to them in 2022. We are sure to see more research on neurodiversity in 2022 and hopefully that will lead to more people being diagnosed and understood.

Of course, there will still be Covid-19 in 2022 but with the progress in vaccination programmes comes hope and an improvement of our current fears and restrictions. For things to really improve, we need to vaccinate the rest of the world. France has donated 75.6 million vaccines so far and has committed to donate 120 million doses to support developing countries suffering from shortages, committing to donate 120 million doses by the end of June 2022. Hopefully other countries will join this initiative.

There have also been great advancements on treatments for people who get Covid-19. Antiviral drugs have been developed to prevent severe disease and death. As Bill Gates says, “Ending the pandemic doesn't mean eradicating Covid completely but we hope to be able to bring it down to controlled, much smaller numbers by the end of 2022.”

The environment

Although it is probably too optimistic to believe there will be no extreme weather events caused by global warming 2022, there is more optimism about the readiness of people to take action to attempt to reverse it. Because of activists like Greta Thunberg, more of us have become aware of the problems we face. Many believe people will fly a lot less than in pre pandemic times in an effort to lower carbon dioxide emissions.

World leaders met in Glasgow in 2021 for COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where although they did not agree to take actions consistent with maintaining less than 1.5°C of global heating, they did, however, promise to meet again in November 2022 with “better plans” in Sharm el-Sheikh. They also made collective commitments to curb methane emissions, to halt and reverse forest loss, to accelerate the phasing out of coal, and eliminate the internal-combustion engine. This can only be seen as progress.

Mental Health

Having appendicitis, pneumonia, diabetes or any other physical problem diagnosed is a lot more straightforward than getting a diagnosis of depression, anxiety or any other mental health problem. Going to your GP with an ailment is perfectly normal. We hope that in the future it will be just as straightforward to be seen by a psychologist or counsellor when you have mental health problems that affect your daily life. Over the last few years there has been increased willingness to see mental health as an essential part of our well-being. People are finally starting to talk freely about their mental health after years of shame and stigma and years of research have helped progression in the right direction. “The next generations have become vocal about the need to break stigma and encourage people to get help,” says Dr Don Mordecai, M.D. Kaiser Permanente’s national leader for mental health. “The conversations we have now we would never have had a few years ago.”

In 2022 World Mental Health Day will be again celebrated on October 10th. The slogan for 2021’s WMHD was “Mental Health Care For All: let’s make it a reality.” Understanding that the pandemic has had a huge impact on mental health, governments attending the World Health Assembly in May 2021 pledged to improve and increase access to mental health services. In fact, “as of 2022, French residents will have the cost of therapy sessions covered by the government” according to the World Economic Forum since the French president Macron referred to mental health as “a major issue that is insufficiently addressed in our country.” Today the average citizen is more knowledgeable in regard to mental health than previously, and more and more conversations about mental health are being had globally.

We can be positive and optimistic if we look at the progress that is being made regarding the pandemic, our mental health, society and the environment in general. We only have to know where to look and then make that decision to be hopeful and do whatever we can to help.

References:

weforum.org/agenda/2021

cnbe.com

environmentaldefence.ca