Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Large-scale and dramatic rearrangements of our current system worldwide and in the United States are likely to come in the wake of the season of death that is upon us—and in the wake of the economic carnage that results from the breakdown of a system so vulnerable that a tiny virus could topple it at its base.
An ecosocial modest proposal by cartoonist Miguel Brieva from the coronavirus pandemic. How about if we take advantage of such a complex and extraordinary situation to draw some valuable conclusions?
Facts about the COVID-19 pandemic and what you can do. Sources for more information.
For the next few weeks, many of us here in Ireland – and possibly where you are — will feel like we are in a permanent state of house arrest, working from home and looking after children kept home from school. Most of us are, rightly, staying away from crowds of people and making food at home, so most of us need to stock up on the basics durable foods that will keep over time – beans, lentils, rice, flour, salt, sugar and other staples.
If Italy is an example, it may be that in case of a truly serious climate emergency, governments may finally decide to react and do something serious. At the same time, the same people who are now thundering against “climate alarmism” would fall in line and ask for national unity against the climate threat.
We need to be thinking of ways to keep civic connections alive for the next while. The pandemic will not last indefinitely: the virus itself may be here for good, but one way or another it and humanity will negotiate some sort of biological accommodation… Our urgent task is to keep our communities healthy and resilient in the interim.
As the coronavirus spreads anxiety and panic across the globe, people are finding ways to share information and support each other.
Citing the “collective solidarity” of friends and family in China and Hong Kong who have been affected by the coronavirus, a Seattle group has formed an online community to coordinate resources and provide support to those most vulnerable to the infection.
The global spread of a new pathogen has exposed the fragility of modern life. As it moves around the world, the coronavirus has compromised the circulatory system of globalization, dramatically reducing the international flow of money, goods, and people.
May I re-frame the coronavirus conversation? Outbreaks are going to happen more often in our climate-altered world, and they highlight the fragility of our growth-or-bust industrial system.
Health is not just an absence of illness. At the very least health includes a well-functioning immune system, our bodies’ first defense against pathogens that cause disease. This includes COVID-19, the coronavirus.
The first thing to overcome with the coronavirus is fear. The virus is certainly dangerous. The likelihood is we will need to learn to live with it. A “new normal” will emerge with its own protocols for traveling, meeting, caring for each other, grieving those we lose, and living our lives.
And as this global phase shift accelerates, as this civilization built over the last few hundred years slides deeper into chaos and uncertainty, it is that capacity which will provide us the strength and resilience to weave the foundations of a new emerging system that is adaptive to, not dysfunctional with, the web of life.
