Living in 'interesting times': Dickensian illusion and Orwellian nightmare

As one watches headlines that are of more than passing interest, the question thrusts itself forward: Are we living through the “interesting times” of the Chinese curse, with multiple and overlapping crises slowly coming to a head, in a manner that is beyond the capacity of existing systems and institutions to meaningfully tackle? Consider, for a start, the fact that climate change has caused heat waves and fires in (of all places) Siberia and north-western Canada. It has also caused unprecedented floods in half a dozen wealthy countries in Europe where people have been used to reading about such events in only distant, benighted lands.
 
Then, we may be faced with a semi-permanent state of medical alert. Under a