Climate Change and the Covid19 Pandemic: learning for the future

Walking in the forest, early March

Just a few weeks ago I was walking in a Cairngorm forest and the world seemed a very different place. We could go to work, go out when we wanted, travel to meet friends, to take holidays, visit pubs and restaurants. Yes we’d heard there was a virus spreading but it was a long way away. Then it reaches where we live, people are dying, losing their family, friends and jobs. We start to take notice! To act differently. The Government takes notice too and suddenly we are in lockdown with £billions being found to help where it is needed. We’ve seen that when threatened with a crisis, an existential threat, we can act, we can change. It is worth looking at the links between the existential threats of a global pandemic and those resulting from climate changes.

Both Covid19 (and other pandemics to come!) and climate change deliver shocks to our systems, to our ways of living and working. Both are non-linear, they start with small effects and grow rapidly to have major impacts world wide. Both increase the risk to people, business and the planet as a whole. Both are regressive, they impact on the poorest the most, those who can’t afford computers to work from home, those who don’t have the opportunity to self-isolate as they only have one room, those who are in low paid jobs and need to work, those who struggle to find food anyway. Both affect the rich who can afford to protect themselves, the least.

There are though key differences. The timescales are different. Viruses spread quickly, have a rapid impact. Climate change is gradual, though the factors causing or contributing to it are accumulative. As a result we face what some call ‘the tragedy of the horizon’, it is too far away so we have no sense of when or how bad it will get. Unlike with the current pandemic, we don’t wake up tomorrow with an understanding of the consequences. The fact is, and some countries, some people, are seeing and feeling this already, Climate Change will be a lot worse, last a lot longer and affect more people.

We know that Climate Change is what insurance companies term a ‘risk multiplier’. As storms hit, more places will be flooded, more coastlines will be submerged as sea levels rise. Droughts and fires will affect vast areas. In both instances crops will fail and food shortages will occur, not just in the poorer countries already affected by Climate Change but worldwide. We need to be developing systems that can endure, be resilient and yes as we’ve seen in the pandemic, there will be shortages, some people will panic buy so we need to have more mindful management of our future. Maybe as a result of the pandemic there will be more respect for science, but there will still be those in denial, including politicians who seek to bluff and bluster their way out of the crisis, those who seek to portray business and life as normal.

What is normal? We’re currently seeing more people working from home, travelling less, using technology more. As a result of the lockdown there is less traffic, less pollution less deaths from other causes such as seasonal flu or measles. Is this a new normal that people may prefer? Certainly the planet is benefiting, air and water quality is improved, we’re using less resources, could this be a new normal? We’re seeing what a cleaner world looks like, is it a world we want for our children and grand children? If so we need to ask for it, to hold our politicians to account.

The country is ours. We delegate the running of the country to our elected politicians to run on our behalf, but sometimes they forget this. We need to thank them for their service and remind them constantly who they represent and why. The first duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe, have they done so during the pandemic? Will they do so in the face of climate change?

A big problem is the psychological impact of the pandemic and more and more that caused by climate change. We have a tendency to want to forget about the bad times, to want some version of ‘normal’ that we like. At the same time there are vested interests, persuading us and our politicians that we must return to a ‘normal’ where they maximise their profits and we keep buying. We need to counter this, to have a shift in consciousness, maybe a shift in ‘conscience-ness’, a state where we recognise and act on what is best for people and planet, a state that reflects how our communities can change, can come together for the good of the many rather than the profits of the few!

Looking Back

Looking back

There can be great value in looking back, not to dwell in the past but to see just how far we’ve come, the obstacles we’ve passed along the way. Our record of getting through each day is 100%, whether things have gone smoothly or to plan doesn’t really matter, after all good judgement comes from experience, but experience often comes from poor judgement and how we’ve reflected and learned from it. That’s the key, learning. If we get something right, if things go well we need to reflect and learn from this too, even if it was by accident, we can learn to recreate the conditions so the accident of good fortune keeps happening.

There are many things happening right now that we can learn from, but that means reflecting on what we see, what we experience and how we can if needed bring about change.  We are currently seeing great changes happening. The impact of Covid-19 isn’t only the illness and suffering caused though this can be catastrophic. We are also seeing how people, from Governments to local communities, can come together, can act quickly to provide support where needed. We can see how small shops can adapt to serve their customers, providing online and telephone ordering and home delivery services. People are discovering that they can avoid travel and use technology to facilitate meetings and learning. We are learning who are the key workers and recognising that they are more important than may have been recognised, how they are treated should reflect this. We are seeing that the companies and organisations that damage our planet through their business activities, from oil production to pollution are also the ones quickest to request government assistance even though they do everything they can to avoid paying the taxes which support society, especially in times of need.

Yes the pandemic may be causing harm, but it is also providing an opportunity to learn, to realise what is important to us and to plan a future where people and the planet are more valued than profits.

Hope or Anxiety

Volunteer rescue team clearing flooded streets

We’re in a new decade and already it is setting the scene for what the future may bring. The outbreak of Coronavirus in China has highlighted issues ranging from the risks with ease of travel and connections to others, through to the supply chains of businesses and the damage to ‘just in time’ processes

Storms in the last few weeks have shown that we face increasingly frequent and severe weather events and highlight some of the hazards faced in changing land use. With violent storms producing vast rainfall over short periods we depend more than ever on the ability of our uplands to slow water flow, to retain moisture in the soil. That much of our upland areas are drained to provide habitat for non-native species, reared so that a few can kill them must be questioned. Surely naturally damming of water courses (perhaps by beavers), the planting not just of trees but of whole forests and the management of upland areas for the wellbeing of all would be a wiser investment for our future than the erection of temporary flood defences. The flow of water needs to be slowed, perhaps captured, not simply diverted. Perhaps as we also face hotter summers we will also need more water storage, more upland reservoirs, again creating facilities for other health and recreational activities.

Seen together, health crises and dramatic weather can be linked. Our ease of international travel means diseases spread quickly. This same ease makes ‘just in time’ production work. However the impact of rapidly transmitted disease also slows the supply chain when production lines are halted. The improvements in atmospheric pollution levels seen as a result of quarantine action in China demonstrate not only the contribution of manufacturing, travel and transport to climate damage but that with the right will, we can rapidly affect our climate positively.

How do we act?

Understanding our communication systems, identifying damaging impacts, and engaging with others can all produce positive results. Being mindful of our own resource use, our own lifestyles and making changes to benefit the ecosystem we are part of can send the message that no action is too small, it will have consequences. Maybe in improving our own health (walking instead of driving, eating less meat), maybe in enthusing others, and just possibly in sending messages that we want things to be different, we want everyone, citizens, politicians, businesses, to be responsible for our future and that of our children. Achieving this even on a small but replicable scale brings hope and reduces anxiety. We are now Global Citizens, facing all the hazards and opportunities inherent in such status. We can act together, addressing issues for the benefit of all. 

Waking Up

I wake up in the morning

To the sound that I’m not dead

It’s the tapping of the seagull 

On the window above my bed

Sometimes it takes an external stimulus to bring you in to the present moment. Whether it is the sound of the seagull or a bright colour, a movement, a shape, a pattern, anything that brings you in to the ‘here and now’, helps you notice.

Colour attracts

The sunlight draws your attention

Movement of the otter helps you notice

Again movement draws attention

Patterns or symmetry may be attractive

Living Mindfully, living with awareness, helps us come out of the ‘Conceptual’ mode common in today’s fast moving environment. An environment where we are constantly thinking, planning, analysing, regretting and my favourite word - catastrophising. A place where we are always wondering ‘what next?’, what if? And why? 

Mindfulness practice, especially a practice based in nature, helps us to enter a more experiential mode, a mode where we notice more of what is around us, a mode where we see the reality of the world we are part of rather than watching the fake reality that can exist in our minds, on TV or other media.

By noticing and engaging with this real world we can learn to be less stressed, less anxious. We can learn to be more appreciative of our senses, how they help us feel, help us simply be.

But there may be a downside. When we engage fully with this natural environment we are part of, we also see how our lives and those of others impact on it, how fragile it is. The key is not to allow the damage seen to cause more anxiety but to use it as a call to action, to engage with others in protecting our ecosystem, our planet, acting to reduce our impact, after all it’s the only planet we have. If we protect it, it benefits us and all other creatures that depend on it.  

New Decade, New Choices

Every dawn brings new choices

For some a new year is an opportunity to make commitments that deep down they know will never last. 2020 presents an opportunity to make a real difference. No feeling down because the resolution lasted just a few days, instead seeing the new year as the start of a new way of acting, of living, of making a difference for ourselves and for others.

Closer connections to nature help our health and wellbeing

A few years ago the five steps to wellbeing were introduced, Connecting, Being Active, Giving, Learning, Being Mindful. Each of these can be achieved as we move to be active citizens, people who don’t abdicate responsibility to elected representatives but instead hold them to account, make them represent us all and keep their promises. Being active we can engage more fully with our natural world, walking, cycling, simply getting out more, enjoying the world around us. We can learn about the issues facing us, not as threats but as areas we can act on, giving our time to help our community, our world, connecting with other people, being mindful of how we spend our time, our money, how we use our resources and how this can be changed. One thing to add, a 6th step is To Have Fun, instead of being overcome with the negative actions of others, the dangers of despondency and inaction, take steps to do things that make you laugh, make you smile.

Be childlike, have fun

A story from the Buddhist tradition uses the example of a lotus, a flower that sits tightly wrapped in its leaves at the bottom of a pond, a lake. Sits amid all the weeds and mud and then rises above them, breaks through the surface where it unfolds and blossoms. We can do the same, taking on challenges and rising above them.

Lotus like we can thrive, rise above the weeds and mud holding us back

Above all remember the new decade is a real opportunity to grow personally, to help others, to protect our planet, because we have to be responsible ourselves, challenging others to have stronger healthier communities where we all thrive without wrecking our environment.

Above all we no longer have the chance to say we didn’t know what was wrong or what to do about it, instead we have the chance to make a difference and to be able to face our children, everyone’s children in the future. Answering the question

A poster at the XR protest in Trafalgar Square