As I write this, vote counting continues in the US presidential election. Try as I might, I find it impossible to accept the sage advice of the Serenity Prayer. I know the difference, but serenity escapes me:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can change; and the wisdom to know the difference.
Wisdom – ah, the ‘wise’ bit of our book ‘Scotland 2070 – healthy, wealthy and wise’.
In the winter of 2019-20, the UK election, Brexit, and Covid-19 came in quick succession. Much of the material we had written on political choices and social issues went out of date faster than we could rewrite it. So, we had the wisdom to accept that we couldn’t change or even influence the short term run of events.
But we did have the courage to change what we could change – the structure of the book. Forget the short term: we’re interested in the medium term global trends that will shape our world for good and ill over the next fifty years. We can’t change these – but nor can anyone else. This had always been a key theme of the book – now it’s the whole of the book.
Climate change is causing changes which won’t reverse in our lifetimes, and which will create opportunities as well as problems. The first of our six enduring themes is the melting of the arctic sea-ice. This is bad for the world – but what opportunities does it offer Scotland because of our geographical position, skill base, and maritime and industrial heritage?
Humans have reduced large areas of Scotland to a wet desert. We can’t change history – but we can change the future. If we have the wisdom to steward our land and our coastal waters, we can work with nature to rebuild our rural economy and our fish stocks, and repair our communities and our natural environment. The courage to plant five billion trees, the serenity to let nature do what it does best in its own time, and the wisdom to make better use of our land and sea for the benefit of the whole country.
Oil won’t go on for ever – do we have the courage to invest the remaining oil wealth to create a wealthy post-oil future, and the wisdom to capture and use the wealth to benefit all of our people?
We are good at medical science – have we the courage to use our expertise to secure excellent and affordable healthcare for the nation while making the sector a boost to our economy, not a drain on it?
Have we the courage to invest in our skills and knowledge, to triple R&D spend, and the wisdom to do that in areas where we can build world-competitive industries?
Have we the wisdom to realise that beggar-my-neighbour policies drag us all down, and the courage to work together as ‘one Scotland’ to rebuild our infrastructure for the twenty-first century?
And finally, do we have the serenity to accept that we are all individuals, with different values, entitled to our opinions and beliefs; the wisdom to realise there are different possible routes to a successful future for Scotland; and the courage to trust our political process with all its turbulence, to get us there if we can once agree where we want to get to?