2024: The Best Year of the Rest of our Lives

Every year from here on out

It’s a truism among the doomer community that from here on out, every year is the best year of the rest of our lives.

No matter how bad the year was, the sentiment goes, every subsequent year is going to be worse. Certainly from the point of view of climate indicators, there’s nothing we can do to prevent things from devolving into chaos. 2023 was the warmest year ever recorded, almost a fifth of a degree above 2022, the previous record holder. Today, January 9, is yet again the warmest day ever recorded. It’s likely that this January or February will be the end of the first twelve month period above 1.5°C  – the red line established by the politics of 2015 which, at the time, was also the warmest year to that point. Today 1.5°C is an uncomfortable reminder that kicking the can down the road is not a solution to anything. 

But in true human fashion, the situation has been resolved by moving the goalposts and focusing on 2°C instead. Don’t worry, though, we’ll get there soon: two days last November exceeded that benchmark, and today we’re already there again — a full six standard deviations above the mean. 

(2023 Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies — NASA)

To me, the idea that every year henceforth is the best year of the rest of my life highlights the difference between the large scale indicators and each person’s lived experience. In my own case, 2023 included six months of travel with my family: we rang in the New Year in Bangkok, before proceeding through Southeast Asia, Bali, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. Then we moved to Vermont, a region that we hope will provide more resilient options as the global biosphere crumbles. We avoided all the fires, floods, droughts, and wars and it was pretty great.

But it certainly wasn’t great for everyone. 2023 featured intense heat on every continent, a hurricane that devastated Acapulco, flooding in Libya that killed thousands of people, a drought that rendered the mighty rivers of the Amazon basin into belts of sand (while there was simultaneously massive flooding elsewhere in Brazil), unprecedented wildfires in places as varied as Brazil, Maui, Turkey, and of course Canada, where nearly 20 million hectares burned, an area the size of North Dakota and ten times the average. In addition to the drought in the Amazon, the ongoing multiyear drought in Europe continued, as did droughts in India, Africa, and elsewhere. 2023 set all kinds of records: record ocean temperatures and sea level rise, record low Antarctic ice. 2023 even flooded Burning Man. 

You might think that these developments would spur humanity to do something. Yet 2023 also featured record high atmospheric carbon (now double preindustrial levels) and methane (worryingly, concentrations are increasing despite anthropogenic emissions leveling off), and, at 40 Gigatons, record high carbon emissions – mostly from fossil fuels burned in rich countries. 

I’ve been “collapse-aware” for a few years now, and these days I don’t expect a lot from humanity organized at the scale of millions or billions. Still, it’s disheartening to see us consistently fulfilling my low expectations. I didn’t expect much from COP28, but to actually see fossil fuel interests poisoning the proceedings even at this late date was simultaneously horrifying, disappointing, and not surprising. 

I wrote a post about COP28, but ultimately I never posted it. It was well informed, incisive, and frustrating. And by the end I was over it: the political process has failed and it’s time to accept that. 

At this point, remaining invested in the process of failure is simply a recipe for misery. It’s venal, inadequate, and doomed to failure. And the consequences of this failure are going to include the end of human civilization. 

But what do I, as an individual, do with that? I can sit around feeling powerless and hopeless – but I’ve tried that and it’s just a self-fulfilling downward spiral. I can ignore the problems – after all, I have food on the table, a roof over my head, and an unimpaired flow of diverting amusements. But I can’t un-know or un-care about the things I know and care about; the only way to ignore it all would be through dangerously insalubrious methods. 

What I’ve chosen to do instead is focus on the quality of life of me and the people around me now and in the future. I’m aware of the large scale problems, but I'm also aware of the limited purview of my capabilities. Rather than wallow in anxiety about what we are about to endure, or are enduring, I’m taking steps to create the conditions for a fulfilling rest of my life. My vision is to live in community on the land, growing our own food, generating our own power, and reveling in our own culture. 

And in 2024 I mean to take concrete steps in that direction. I’m currently working with an informal group of partners here in Vermont with an eye towards acquiring land here to build a sustainable cohousing community. I’m in the middle of taking a Permaculture Design Course so that we can make the most of the flows of energy, water, and living things on that land.

This year I will start experimenting with intensive cultivation to grow the basics for myself, my family, and my community. This year, we will find and acquire the land to host this community. This year, I will build local networks around sustainable practice and mutual resilience. 

If I can do all of that, regardless of the chaos that will be increasingly consuming the planet I love the most, 2024 could indeed be the best year of the rest of my life.