Word of the Year 2024

It’s not ‘brain rot’ – the pick of Oxford University Press, that reflects the endless scrolling of mind-numbing content on social media. Neither is it ‘polarisation’ – the word that stood out at premier US dictionary, Merriam-Webster, that ironically is something everyone in the US can agree on. And it’s not ‘era’, the word inspired by Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, that you might use to describe a period of your life or career that has a distinctive character.

To renew or rebuild the source of power. That’s the definition of Carbon Copy’s word of the year. Can you guess the word? Our Word of the Year 2024 is ‘repower’ and here are some of the ways that repower has played out this year – in the online space where brain rot can take hold; in a polarised world where common ground seems to be disappearing; as the essential theme that characterises the current era of many people.

The power of social media platforms ultimately lies with the people who share their personal information and where they choose to share it. We are the ones who decide whether to stay or go. Elon Musk’s X is a case in point. This ‘digital town square’ has become a far less enjoyable place to be, with too much airtime given to those with discriminatory views and a rapid decline in diverse opinions and in the healthy exchange of ideas. And so we are seeing a repowering, with a mass departure from X and the rapid rise of alternative platforms such as Bluesky (https://bsky.social/). Carbon Copy is one of these liberated X-pats: we could no longer justify staying on a platform where the purpose of our work was being undermined, and so we chose to leave X in 2024. Liberation on X does not mean giving more space to racist or violent narratives; it’s leaving the space entirely.

The UK general election in 2024 saw the dramatic repowering of our national government, with a huge swing from the Conservatives towards Labour and the Lib Dems. Thankfully, we do not see the levels of polarisation witnessed in US politics – but I am not complacent, and bridging political divides is a deliberate, positive effort that cannot be left to chance. Rather than highlighting policies (like most people, I am a fan of some but dislike others), here are a couple of approaches taken by the Labour government that signal repower:

For the first time, England’s metro mayors gathered in July in a cross-party meeting to begin the process of shifting power out of Westminster. Driving local growth through more devolution is proven in other countries; we just need to copy what works. The second approach has been to repower proposed legislation that has wide, cross-party support. A shining example is the proposed Climate and Nature Bill, backed by 216 MPs and Peers representing all major political parties, currently spearheaded through Parliament by Lib Dem MP, Roz Savage MBE . This #CANBill would help repower our depleted surroundings – with new green jobs, clean air and rivers, cheaper?bills and a nature-rich UK.?

For a lot of the people we interact with through Carbon Copy, their current ‘era’ is distinguished by what they are doing to repower the places and communities around them – implementing solutions to the problems that matter, no matter what happens. It’s exciting to see this power and the possibilities we have as ordinary citizens to reinvent the world around us and, in doing so, to create a more sustainable future for everyone. Too many of us think we don’t have the option of taking our lives in different directions, of starting our next era. But the reality is that each of us has this power at any point in time. We just have to use it, as we have seen so many others do this year.