Beware the Ides of March: a global pandemic today is a harbinger for the changing climate of tomorrow
Have you ever stood alone in the empty wing of an airport waiting to board what might be the last plane to depart a city for some time? You can hear the faintest footstep from across the otherwise usually bustling terminal. The silence is chilling, made even stranger knowing that footstep, whomever it might be: a flight attendant, a fellow passenger, the CEO of the airport, or a janitor, knows as little as you do about the ramifications of an impeding worldwide lockdown.
Anything you do on what feels like one of the most consequential days in modern history has an eeriness to it, I suppose. Schools, shops and restaurants around the world are closing; borders are ordered shut, supply chains are tested, and people the world over are confined at home…the proverbial shit is getting very real.
It was not an easy decision for me to be at that airport: do I stay in Paris, where I live, or do I go home to Toronto, where I’m from? Is it irresponsible to travel during this crisis? Will I risk infecting my loved ones? Is there even a point in being home if I’m going to self-isolate? Am I recklessly in danger of getting “stuck” away from my life, my apartment, my work, and my colleagues for an extended period?
In the end, I decided that whatever was to come next…I needed to be near and with my people.
There is a fluidity to the eeriness and mystery that comes with the onset of a blanket lockdown. Boarded-up shops, scant supplies, rumours of curfews and confinements: most of us have only ever experienced such post-apocalyptic dramatizations as the product of a moviemaker’s imagination (Tom Cruise in an empty Times Square in Vanilla Sky comes to mind).
These unchartered territories make us nervously question the inherent assumptions our lives are modeled upon. There is no shame in asking the hard questions: am I truly equipped to protect my family? Am I infected? How safe is my bank account, really? How deep will this cut? How long will this go? Will things ever go back to normal?
As we strive to answer these questions to regain some semblance of control, we are instead told to suspend our inquisitive nerves, stay at home and help “flatten” the now infamous curve. We’re not patient people you and I, we want to know the plan, we want to know what happens next…we want to know NOW!
We must accept, however, the part we played as voters and citizens in this pandemic: continued underinvestment in healthcare systems and the disregard of facts about the animals we eat sit at the root of this crisis. Ok, COVID-19 comes from a bat in a wet market in China…but a crippling global pandemic could just as easily have blindsided us from more “ordinary” animals we customarily eat hailing from more “typical” (factory) farms.
Facing a global challenge, we can only hope for the best…and prepare for the wort. Such is the nature of crises; but we should never let a good one go to waste.
In the opening scene of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the ruler is carried through a victory parade, when an old man in rags appears from the shadows and whispers “Beware the Ides of March”. He is warning the ruler that upon that month’s median day, March 15th, something grave is set to happen if he does not stay home. Caesar dismisses the old man’ counsel and carries on his reign. True to the soothsayer’s premonition, Caesar is violently and ceremoniously murdered by a group of Roman Senators…on March 15th.
This year, the Ides of March are once again warning, for COVID-19 is not the endpoint. This isn’t how our societies and our systems completely fail. This does, however, provide a glimpse into the future for humanity when the effects of climate change irrevocably force our lives to change: distancing between people, around the clock (bad) news alerts, and somehow accepting the despicable act of hoarding as being reasonably prudent.
While we are scrambling to make last minute arrangements for the global, health, economic and social tsunami that has shaken our worlds, we must heed the warning: the ramifications of irreversible environmental degradation will be far uglier and more permanent than this.
The fight against climate change’s Achilles heel has always been its lack of urgency; the perception that its true impact is far into the future. The intangibility of its consequences has been largely theoretical: shortages of basic resources, ghost towns, changing lifestyles: “2% warmer, some time, in the future, probably…”. But this virus has brought with along some palpability to what will happen if we don’t act now to reverse our climate-destroying activities and habits.
The priority over the next few weeks and months will be to protect ourselves and each other, slow down infections, care for vulnerable populations, and gradually lessen the burden on our frontline health-care workers and alleviate our hospitals that are pushed beyond their finite capacity to treat patients. Fixing the economy will follow thereafter.
But once — if — we’re back to normal: when schools and shops open; financial markets come roaring back; games are won and lost in front of packed stadia; and the summer sun pierces through this dark cloud that has violated so much hope for this new decade; let us not then forget the fear, the discomfort and the panic of this very moment.
May we find the fortitude to redirect these anxieties and act at the personal, community and governmental levels to stop committing the same short-sighted mistakes in our ecosystems, as we have made in our health systems.
May we avoid the wrath of mother earth, for she can swiftly make this bad dream…only just the Coronavirus.
