Coronavirus, climate, crisis, and compassion.
When we respond to crisis, we need to remember compassion, data, and optimism.
I began writing this blog in an almost empty office at 7pm on Tuesday 10 March. Normally the office reverberates with noise as people wrap up their work for the day and chat about their evening plans. But on that day it was eerily quiet. Almost everyone either stayed home or left early. As they departed they said, “see you when I see you.”
The night before, Madrid’s government had announced all the schools would close on Wednesday for two weeks. People were advised to stay home and work remotely. Non-essential travel was discouraged. By morning the shelves were stripped bare and people were fighting over pasta. The behaviour I’d mocked other cities for had arrived on my doorstep.
As I stepped out of the office and into the dusk, I was surprised to see so many people still out and about. The terraces were full of people having a beer and tortilla. Where was the hysteria I’d been seeing online? In a city of 6.5 million people, there are many responses to a crisis. And not all of them are visible online.
What I’m learning from a city that changed its behaviour overnight — and is now in total lock down — is how we should respond to a crisis. It doesn’t matter if it’s Coronavirus or Climate Change, there are three things we need to remember: Compassion, Data, and Optimism
Compassion.
Compassion is “a feeling of concern for another person’s suffering (and your own) which is accompanied by the motivation to help.” In this situation you feel concern for another person, but you don’t make their distress your own. Instead you find an appropriate way to help.
For example, while some people have responded to the Coronavirus by hoarding toilet paper, others are taking a more laissez-faire approach to life and continuing with their usual habits. The young and healthy are being told not to worry, so they are out and about carrying on as normal. That’s great for local businesses. But what about the people who are old and have health conditions? What’s the best way to protect people from both infection and the mental health impacts of social isolation?
The death rate for anyone under 39 is just 0.2% but for our parents and grandparents, the rate increases up to 14.8% for the over 80s. Before lock down I worried about getting infected; what if I passed the virus on to someone who is recovering from an operation, is being treated for cancer, or has an existing respiratory condition? These are three real scenarios for me and it scared me. We all know someone who is vulnerable.
Compassion motivates us to make decisions that will help others as well as ourselves. That’s why so many people are staying home, even if they aren’t yet forced to by their government. If you can, just stay home.
Being aware of how a crisis impacts other people is what makes me cringe when I see people celebrating the reduction of carbon emissions while the world shuts down. The Coronavirus is “the worst way to drive down emissions” because people are dying and some can’t afford to stock up on food or pay for medicine. The closure of businesses and factories is causing an economic downturn that will affect every single one of us.
Furthermore, it’s unlikely that the Coronavirus will meaningfully reduce the dangers of climate change. Carbon emissions dipped during the last global economic crisis but nations responded by increasing output once the crisis was over.
In any crisis, be it Coronavirus or Climate Change, we need to find solutions that remove people from harm, not make them more vulnerable.
Climate change will disproportionately affect low-income countries and poor people in high-income countries, which threatens human rights such as the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being. We need to learn from the choices we’re making now, and have more empathy for people who don’t have the same privileges as those of us who are WEIRD [Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic]. My teammate Melanie is writing a great blog about mapping for the 99% and how we can have greater empathy for them. We’ll publish it the coming days.
Data.
To make the right choices, we need data. Reliable, trusted, accessible data. I’ve written before about the importance of critical thinking and the need to question the source of the information you’re looking at. Advice from the Colegio Oficial la Psicología de Madrid on coping with Coronavirus anxiety reminds us to ask ourselves, is the data I’m seeing truthful? Has it come from a reliable source?
Our World in Data is one source I’ve been referring to for up-to-date data on the spread of the Coronavirus. They use charts to display the data and text to explain the visuals. Presenting data in a way that is easily understood by the target audience is key to effective data visualisation.
When Anne Maria Darling saw people weren’t grasping the concept of ‘flattening the curve’, she added cats to make it more appealing to those who prefer to communicate with memes. The ‘lazy kitty’ analogy works purr-fectly as a message to stay home, relax, and help reduce the spread of Coronavirus.
Optimism.
To overcome a crisis we must remain optimistic. Whether that’s seeing self-isolation as an opportunity to read that book you’ve been wanting to read for ages, or a chance to improve your company’s remote working policies. When we imagine a more positive future it becomes easier to spot the opportunities that will take us there. That’s why I’m writing this blog right now, because I had to turn a negative into a positive. If you’d read the first draft of this blog you’d be curled up in bed and crying by now.
Our team is testing new ways to connect with one another while we stay at home. Last week we celebrated a teammate’s birthday with a virtual happy hour. It was awesome to watch everyone’s face light up as we chatted about movies, books, and how to move our outside life online.
More than ever, our team knows we must continue our efforts to accelerate the speed at which positive change happens for our planet. Once the worst of the Coronavirus crisis has passed, the Climate Crisis will still be there. We will still need to protect biodiversity. We will still be fighting for equality. This huge shift in the way society functions is our chance to be more compassionate, more creative, and more open to new possibilities.
At the heart of every crisis you will find a personal, emotional turning point. A moment when the solution to a crisis is finally born. Are you there yet?
