Climate, Coronavirus and the Economy
Disruption revolutions and evolutions
The global response to the coronavirus has been both dramatic and spectacular. Our day-to-day life has been massively disrupted to “flatten the curve”; the media has gone into a frenzy, and the quality of global political leadership has, for better or worse, been laid bare.
But why has the response to the COVID-19 been so dramatic in comparison to the existential threat of climate change, and other life-threatening issues across the globe?
Kill me now or kill someone later…
The obvious point is that it has to do with our perception of danger. The risk of dying from an illness that could get to yours truly in a few weeks is more urgent than a climate crisis that could kill an abstract person in the next few years.We are generally not good with assessing risk. However, when things are close to home, we have more skin in the game and, therefore, are more likely to act.
Don’t come near me with your germs!
The second part of “corona-risk” is that it is transferred by individuals. At least that’s how we perceive it. It’s harder to see the risk as a product of places where people aggregate (because we need those), but easier to associate the risk with people that are going out, that might be irresponsibly sick or asymptomatically carrying the virus.
There is intense talk about people tracking and the question of whose freedom is more important: The people who have the right to not be infected, or the people that have the right to not be tracked. The trouble is that if we give up the right to not be tracked now, we won’t get it back later. For all we know, this right may already have been taken away from us in secret.
Sure, this virus is carried by people, who may or may not know they are carrying it, and they expose us all to systemic risk. But what if you, inadvertently, are moved from the category of a good citizen, to citizen who must be tracked? What then? It’s not cool to be on the other side of an ism. There are too many grey areas as to what is deemed reckless. In all probability, the soup of exposure has been too well mixed already.
In ordinary circumstances, when exposed to systemic risks by corporations and institutions, we don’t take note. Is it because they are better at hiding? Or is it because they are better at misdirection? Or because they are slow-acting?
The quiet risks that accumulate, until they hit criticality, are the ones that we seem least willing to address. Environmental toxicity is a leading cause of death and disease. It also happens to be mislabelled. Have you heard of lung cancer, Alzheimer’s and auto-immune diseases? They are on the rise due to pollution.
Why is it that we only think of checking our cholesterol levels or changing our diets after the heart attack? What about those diabetics that grew up on a sugar is energy diatribe?
Critical Massacre…
By now, most of the world has seen the images from Italy and China. The possibility of dying, gasping for air, and not being able to be buried with dignity feels real. We know that the healthcare system could be, and perhaps will be, overloaded. In a tightly networked society, the spread of disease is exponential. Right now, most sane countries are putting their people into quarantine to slow down the spread of the virus.
The dichotomy is that environmental issues are much less visceral for the general public until forest fires hit and the great barrier reef started bleaching. Let’s not even talk about the rape of the Amazon, which carries on because while it’s visible, it’s not local. It’s happening somewhere else, and they (somehow) elected their government. So, it’s their fault. Also, the media loves an imminent catastrophe, more than an ultimate catastrophe.
Save the Economy!
The economy isn’t something tangible like a life. It is an invisible web that is not well understood by most people and (arguably) by most economists. Yet, those in power are committed to saving it. The save the economy message has never been more urgent than in the last few weeks.
Usually, the timescale of saving the economy lasts until the next election. This has to do with the “misery index” in economics; a measure of unemployment and inflation. When the government talks about saving the economy, what they mean is preserving the status quo for the lobbyists they like best, and reducing the misery index so that they can be re-elected. Read between the lines.
The primary effect of the coronavirus is that, as countries go into lockdown, there has been a break in the continuity of the labor market. Further effects include a drop in the value of retail space, damages to contractual, the failure of small businesses and accumulation of uninsured risks. There is a flock of black-swans approaching.
But here is what you can bet on. As the effects of the broken continuity of labor are felt, there will be a strong call from the lobbyists to save their economy. The general public will feel the misery index, and they may agree to anything to keep the pain in check. Be careful what you bargain with, you might never get it back.
Exposing Fragilities
This is a wake-up call telling us that it is time for the economy to evolve. We’re being broken out an illusory cocoon that we don’t share risks, that we can consume indefinitely, and that we’re separate. These are the fragilities of the status quo. It is these fragilities that have been exposed, and that need to be addressed.
It’s time to strengthen the bottom of the pyramid. Not just financially, but with the deep consideration of the metrics that matter: quality of life, feelings of integration and well being. In Bhutan, there is an index called Gross National Happiness. Perhaps, this can be a global standard? You can add environmental quality to that too.
Even though, as Keynes put it, “In the long run we’re all dead.” We are living through the cumulative effects of the excess economy. We based our prosperity on the wrong principles: consumerism instead of circularity, and extraction instead of regeneration. A shift in identity is required.
Evolve the economy, don’t fix it. It was broken already. We need a complete redesign from the ground up. Right now is the time for reimagining the systems that we use to cooperate and communicate our creative output. They need to work for us, from the bottom up, instead of for someone else, from the top down. It’s time to innovate.
