PowerSwitch

As we welcome in a new year, I've heard many people talk about how rubbish their 2024 has been. Anything from the weather, their horticulture/farming businesses, their (or family's) health, the economy, geopolitics etc etc... And everyone is hoping, wishing for a better 2025. I do resist suggesting that in all likelihood 2025 will bring more of the same, maybe worse, unless I really know where folk are.

But hey, Happy New Year everyone!

In many ways 2024 was the best year I have had in a couple of decades. This is largely because we finally got both our children out of our home, at least for the present, and our financial position became a little clearer, if not more numerous. We have landed in a small oasis of calm and social inclusion, and my plans towards a low energy low cost future have largely been heading in the right direction, with the blip of a neurotic ev. Although I lost my brother at too young an age, the rest of my few remaining relations are not high on my worry list.

A lot could go wrong next year, but I feel in a reasonably resilient frame of mind and physical condition, so I will face the future with calm determination.

I have been largely observing this forum since 2005. In 20 years, I have seen many people come and go, quite often posting on imminent apocalyptic predictions. I have often been sucked into the generally depressive vibe and on reflection wish I had engaged with more positive spaces. However, I don’t think I could be any better prepared psychologically for a major catastrophic event but I have many times tried and failed to prepare in any physical sense. But 20 years have gone by and what we have seen has been no catastrophic events but rather a gradual descent into a poorer state of things, environmental, economic, cultural, interpersonal. A slow collapse. I presume therefore that this trend will continue in 2025. Insufficiently bad or rapid a collapse for the bulk of the population to stop hoping for better. I think it will be a few years yet before people stop talking about ‘crisis’ and start using ‘collapse’.

I do not expect an apocalyptic event in 2025, possible IMHO, but not very likely.
More likely in my view is that 2025 will be rather similar to 2024, but a bit worse.

oobers wrote: ↑31 Dec 2024, 22:01 A slow collapse. I presume therefore that this trend will continue in 2025. Insufficiently bad or rapid a collapse for the bulk of the population to stop hoping for better. I think it will be a few years yet before people stop talking about ‘crisis’ and start using ‘collapse’.

Yes. The most likely scenario is that things just keep getting steadily worse. "Normal" just keeps moving more and more towards things that were once unthinkable.

I am just focused on my own projects. Firstly our smallholding -- learning all the time, and improving our situation in whatever ways we can. Secondly I have got a book coming out, all about everything that gets discussed on this forum. I am really looking forward to being able to talk openly about the contents of that book. The intention is to move the debate forwards in multiple ways at the same time. It feels to me like the world is ready for some new ideas. A lot of the existing ones are past their sell-by dates.

Financially a good year but the rigours of age and an unhealthy workload and lifestyle are getting to me but these are easily changed.

I spent a lot on preparations but the levels of work, actually in the renewables sector, are taking most of my time. For me I hope to invest in more preparations this year. Not quite ready to build a bunker yet but we seem to be heading that way. I hope the fairly ineffectual Labor government in Australia gets kicked out but at least they seem to be better than what is in power in the UK right now.

I agree with most of the others that a slow collapse is now in train and probably cannot be reversed. It seems to be far worse in the UK but is also manifested in the cost of living in Australia. I see it as energy related but the energy policy mistakes are in large part due to inept and short sighted policies domestically from all political parties and malicious foreign interference from foreign totalitarian nations.

oobers wrote: ↑31 Dec 2024, 22:01A slow collapse. I presume therefore that this trend will continue in 2025. Insufficiently bad or rapid a collapse for the bulk of the population to stop hoping for better. I think it will be a few years yet before people stop talking about ‘crisis’ and start using ‘collapse’.

Yep, it's the 'long emergency'. How many crisis can we have? Financial crisis, housing crisis, environmental crisis, climate crisis, 'war in Ukraine', Middle East crisis... Will we get a Taiwan crisis, bird flu crisis etc? A crisis is meant to be a short lived thing that can be fixed. How long until the word 'crisis' becomes debased?

clv101 wrote: ↑01 Jan 2025, 12:15 How long until the word 'crisis' becomes debased?

My guess is no more than 10 years. The rate at which the general situation is deteriorating is increasing -- the process appears to be gathering momentum all the time. Also, all of the time old people are dying and being replaced by young people who have no memory of the world "before the crisis", which means that perception of the problem is increasing at the same time as the problem itself gets worse.

I'm usually an optimistic soul but, unless you happen to be Syrian, I can't think of a way that 2025 can bring us much in the way of improvement from 2024.
One good trend that I've noticed is that renewbles are generally now cheaper than fossil fuels - Pakistan, for example (of all places!) is going for solar at a massive rate - and that's little individuals, not massive projects.
Poland have taken over from Hungary as the EU presidency, which can't but be an improvement. However the situation 'on the Eastern front' still looks dire, and I can't see the new usa presidency being helpful - to anything. For example it is now fashionable in those parts to bring up small children against the idea of sharing - something that in an reasonable culture one learns at nursary. What kind of adults this fashion is going to produce is frankly not a pretty thing to contemplate.
Here at Chateau Renewable, meanwhile, 2025 is probably going to be pretty-much the same as 2024.

Happy New Year everyone!

2024 was good on the finance front, OK-ish everywhere else. Nothing major happened in my world. Like most others on here I think things will get a little worse going forward.

Labour's popularity will continue to diminish, especially if the economy worsens. Reform will continue to surge, mainly at the Tories' expense, but some of Labour's supporters as well.

Trump and his chums will have manged to fail to deliver and totally feck up so badly that by the end of the year even His Majesty's most ardent believers will be beginning to wonder if he can deliver any of what has been promised.

Boring, but I agree with most others on here....

2025 is likely to be similar to 2024, but a little bit worse - so long as we don't hit any of those nasty Climate Change Tipping Points.....
Manchester has already had a fairly major flooding event - expect more of that, plus heatwaves, fires etc.
Low scale terrorism of all varieties will of course continue...
The economy will flat-line - less manufacturing - more houses and Data Centres....
Reform will pick up a lot of protest votes for the next 2/3/4 years, until people realise what 2/3/4 years of Trump has brought to the US might not be such a good idea to bring here...