No matter what happens, 2024 is guaranteed to be a monumental year. Before this year is out, Donald Trump is likely to be a convicted felon, president-elect, or both.

The wars in Gaza and Ukraine (not to mention Myanmar and a number of simmering African conflicts) will claim the lives of thousands of people, most of them innocent. According to wikipedia, there are seven wars that killed at least 10,000 people each in 2023. In America, more than 40,000 people lost their lives to gun violence last year and it doesn’t look like our citizens (or our elected officials) have the will to stop that particular form of insanity.

On the plus side, the Covid pandemic that killed almost 7 million people worldwide, and 1 million in America, over the last 4 years looks to be winding down. More than 300,000 people died of Covid-19 in the US in 2020. In 2021, it was over 400,000. In 2022, even as the number of deaths dropped, we crossed the grim milestone of 1,000,000 deaths. 2023 was the first year the death toll was less than 200,000, and by the middle of the year there were weeks with fewer than 500 deaths, putting the disease on the fatality level of the flu.

There are other reasons for optimism heading into the crucial year of 2024. There are signs that we are taking the world’s worst crisis – climate change – seriously.

Positive trends—like the rapid spread of electric vehicles and solar panels and the recent decline in Amazon Rainforest deforestation—give humans reason to hope. It’s worth talking about this good news to forestall fatalism and encourage more action.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

It can be hard to see a crisis when you are in the middle of it. It takes so much energy just to slog through each day’s numbing news. But we have been through worse and survived, tougher and smarter, to see better days. Here’s hoping that 2024 is the year we find our way to an equitable and sustainable future. That way we will be better prepared to take on the AI robots who are coming to enslave us.

Here’s wishing you the bluest sky
And hoping something better comes tomorrow
Hoping all the verses rhyme
And the very best of choruses, too
Follow all the doubt and sadness
I know that better things are on the way

Here’s hoping all the days ahead
Won’t be as bitter as the ones behind you
Be an optimist instead
And somehow happiness will find you
Forget what happened yesterday
I know that better things are on the way

It’s really good to see you rocking out
And having fun
Living like you’ve just begun
Accept your life and what it brings
I hope tomorrow you’ll find better things