Our COVID-19 struggles are a sign of what’s to come
Empty store shelves. Financial ruin. Trillion-dollar emergency relief packages pushed through Congress.
There is a lot to take in right now.
Obviously, as you know unless you have actually been living under a rock virtually since the beginning of this year, COVID-19 has triggered a global pandemic that is affecting nearly every part of the world.
From Singapore to Sacramento, Madrid to Malaysia, and everywhere in between, governments are reeling in the face of a new virus for which there is no cure and very little treatment.
Unfortunately, it seems there was also very little planning.
Hospitals in several countries- most notably Italy- are overrun with patients and under-supplied with personal protective equipment for health care workers and important, life-saving machinery for patients.
Global financial markets are on daily roller coaster rides as industry and investment alike struggle to come to terms with the unavoidable truth: no one really knows what is happening.
All of this has left millions unemployed and wary of what may come next even as officials begin to plan for the eventual overcoming of the current crisis.
Eventually, this will pass. It might not pass quickly and definitely will not pass conveniently, but as evidenced in China and other countries beginning to see a decrease in new cases, it will pass.
And then we will all likely return to our normal habits and our routines from before this virus shook daily life to its core.
But what happens when the next global crisis hits?
The global crisis in question is, as you may have guessed, the climate crisis.
Various studies and reports have concluded that climate change will wreak havoc on the global economy and societal order.
As people who live on the coasts are forced out of their homes by rising sea levels they will have no choice but to move inland.
As we begin to see irreversible damage to ecological functions we need to survive, such as water cycles and natural processing of carbon and other pollutants, health issues will skyrocket.
Natural disasters, already a source of strain on local economies and people’s lives when they strike, already are starting to come at more frequent rates and often more intensely than those of decades past.
And all of this will happen simultaneously as the entire world will likely struggle to adjust to a new normal where the only constant might be that there is no consistency.
For good reason everyone seems to have their minds on just getting through this global catastrophe so the world can “return to normal”.
The problem with that thinking is that we all seem convinced the world will be “normal” once COVID-19 isn’t an issue.
If we don’t want to live in fear or panic like this again we definitely cannot keep making decisions that put us on a trajectory towards global instability.
The government responses and societal shortcomings show we are not equipped to handle ongoing crises.
People have found themselves without groceries they need due to national panic-buying and subsequent shortages.
Individuals who have lost jobs are without health insurance, and some have no means to pay rents still due at the first of the month.
These problems are not going to go away when we return to “normal”.
They certainly won’t go away as the climate continues to change
Obviously in this moment our immediate thoughts are on the problem at hand, not the one to come.
But if we are going to ever be prepared for the disasters yet to come we are going to need to start preparing sooner rather than later.
After all, the key to preparation is time. And this virus is giving us all a real-time look at the least of what might be come.
