It took a global pandemic to highlight and begin to ‘correct’ environmental degradation worldwide. What we must learn.
COVID-19 has wreaked havoc across the globe, devastating lives both physically and economically. As arguably the greatest globally felt crisis in human history, this pandemic has a lot to teach us, if we allow it. Most obviously, the impact of modern human society on our natural environment has been ‘revealed’ in the many instances of environments returning to healthier states as a result of stay-at-home orders. The footprint of our excessive lifestyles has become that much more evident. Of course, environmentalists and others have been promulgating this information for decades. But alas, unsurprisingly, it took a global pandemic for the world to be willing to stop and take notice. While many lives will be devastated in the meantime, this pandemic will come to an end whether through effective social distancing measures that sufficiently flatten the curve or a vaccine. We cannot let this all be for nothing.
This pause will only be meaningful if we take the opportunity to reflect and acknowledge what is being revealed, both the wasteful consumptive patterns at the individual level and the systemic failures that continue to perpetuate inequality and environmental destruction. This pandemic has allowed us to think in a different way by removing our imagined borders, revealing our global interconnection, and exposing the need to reassess what it means to live on this planet and be good stewards of this earth collectively..
This is an opportunity to critically think through the notion of individuality, which is touted by the neoliberal capitalistic machine to create a productive and self-driven population less reliant on the state. Of course, some of our political leaders have tried to use this as an opportunity to create a further divide. This is a mechanism of the neoliberal regime after all, and they are fearful of a population that sees the truth and acts accordingly. The structural changes needed are more evident now than ever and this may mean changes to your lifestyle. However, as this pandemic has revealed, life can go on. We can still connect with others, create, learn, develop, and contribute.
When stay-at-home orders are lifted and normative capitalistic lifestyles are once again made more available, will you decide to be changed by these events? What does that look like? Political activism around climate change, shifting patterns in your lifestyle, recognition of and political decision-making aimed at the larger structural changes that need addressing?
