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!