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When Climate Met COVID

By Guy Dauncey, originally published by The Practical Utopian

• April 9, 2020

"We face not one but three simultaneous inter-connected crises: the COVID-19 Emergency, the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency, and the Crisis of Capitalism. We urgently need connected constructive responses.

When you recall the movie When Harry Met Sally, your horny mind probably goes straight the scene in the delicatessen, and “I’ll have what she’s having”. Setting that aside, it took Harry and Sally a long time before they realized that they were natural partners. In my version of the story, Harry is the climate and biodiversity action movement and Sally is the COVID-19 community response movement. For each, the movement includes a wide mix of people, organizations, scientists, health workers, artists, businesses, banks and governments who have realized the urgency of their respective crises. Ideally I need a third character to represent the new economics movement, but since there was no suggestion of polyamory in the movie, I’ll settle for tradition. It would make for a great sequel, however.

Harry is a strategic planner for the Sunrise Movement. He is also active with Extinction Rebellion, 350.org, and Canada’s Climate Action Network. Busy man, our Harry. When he and Sally first met they were curious, but they were still two solitudes. Sally demanded and got all the attention, because her COVID-19 crisis is very immediate, while Harry’s climate crisis could supposedly wait another few months. After all, hadn’t he already been waiting thirty years for serious climate action? But when they took time for that infamous coffee together they realized that they saw eye-to-eye on many things. This is Harry’s memorandum to Sally, laying out Seven Reasons why they should marry.

1. There’s a Double-Whammy Coming: We’ve Got to Work Together

Sometime soon, whether next week or the middle of July, a community that’s struggling to contain COVID-19 is also going to be hit by a climate-strengthened hurricane, tornado or flood, and social distancing will conflict quite hopelessly with the need to rescue people from flooded homes. The Climate and Biodiversity Emergencies are not taking time off to give the COVID-19 Emergency some space – Nature doesn’t work that way. But while COVID-19 may or may not return once it has gone, the Climate and Biodiversity Emergencies will not go away at all, not until we have made big changes to the way we do things throughout the planet. The emergencies will just get more dire, every year.

Most human pathogens originate from fauna, including HIV, Ebola, influenza, MERS, SARS, and now COVID-19. On April 2nd, Germany’s Environment Minister, Sevenja Schulze, said “science tells us that the destruction of ecosystems makes disease outbreaks including pandemics more likely. This indicates that the destruction of nature is the underlying crisis behind the coronavirus crisis.” Professor Josef Settele, from Germany’s Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, added that “the conservation of intact ecosystems and their characteristic biodiversity can reduce the emergence of infectious diseases. Humanity depends on functioning, diverse ecosystems. By destroying ecosystems we are also destroying our livelihoods, as the coronavirus epidemic is showing. What is needed is no less than a fundamental, system-wide reorganisation, covering technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, objectives and values.”

Our crises are inextricably entangled, so we need to work together. We need each other.

2. You Warm My Heart

You, Sally (the COVID-19 Community Response Movement), have shown what people can do when they understand the real urgency of a crisis. We both know there are selfish narcissistic jerks out there, but when you pull out all the stops, my, do you deliver. I bow my head in respect.

You are inspiring people to form neighborhood mutual aid groups to help each other. You are inspiring hundreds of thousands of people to volunteer to help our heroes, the healthcare workers. You are inspiring healthcare workers to put themselves in the path of danger, to heal the sick and protect the rest of us. You are inspiring businesses to rejig their plants to make Personal Protective Equipment as fast as they can. You are inspiring millions of individuals and families to hunker down, however great the inconvenience. You are inspiring people to organize fundraising efforts to help the most vulnerable. You are inspiring many governments to pull out all the stops, discarding ideological prejudices and the economics of austerity to do whatever it takes to end the crisis. Some more, some less, and a few alas are led by selfish narcissistic jerks, but you have shown the world that they are the exception, and that in a crisis most people and most governments are compassionate, cooperative, and eager to help.

Just imagine, if we could work together. The compassion and heroism that you bring out could help us tackle the the climate and biodiversity emergencies, and contribute to our need to build a new economy based on kindness, instead of greed. We could be a good team.

3. We Share a Dislike of Market Selfishness and Greed. . ."

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-04-09/when-climate-met-covid/