As the New Scientist has put it so well, 2022 was a year of “rolling polycrisis.” Just as we were hoping for some sort of normality to return after the devastating Covid lockdowns, along came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As well as the horrendous nature of Russia’s war on the Ukrainian people, the invasion blew apart the relatively stable global order, triggering sky-high energy crises and exposing the weakness of Western economies and their approach to energy and food security.
To cap it all, here in the UK we had three prime ministers, four chancellors, our own mini-financial crisis and now strikes which have wreaked havoc for patients, commuters and shoppers ahead of Christmas.
There have been highs too: a breakthrough in treating Alzheimers’, the biologists at Oxford University who have started working on a family tree for all humanity based on 3,601 modern genomes and eight ancient genomes, as well as new advances in nuclear fusion and other energy technologies.
Despite such a tumultuous year, we have greatly enjoyed bringing our readers the latest commentary and analysis on all these events from politics, geopolitics, business and economics news to culture – and look forward to reporting on what new crises or exciting advances emerge next year.
For now, the Reaction team is taking a short break but we look forward to publishing more great thinking and writing in the New Year. If you are not a subscriber already, start 2023 off right and join Reaction. Normal service (including the daily evening email) will resume on Tuesday 3 January.
Until then, from the Reaction team, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
