Coronavirus: the nightmare that wakes us from our sleepwalk towards disaster? By Max Spokes, History and Politics student at Balliol College
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Whilst it may be true that change is the only constant, what is also undeniable is that the status quo has remained firmly entrenched for decades, with little disruption to the growth-obsessed capitalist economic model since World War Two.
Certainly, there was the fall of communism in the late 1980s, and the global financial crisis in 2008; but after the former, neoliberal hegemony only expanded, whilst the latter resulted with the bailing out of the banks which fuelled the crash in the first place. Whilst it is far too early to be in any position to predict what the global reaction to the current coronavirus pandemic (and its unprecedented economic impacts) will be, there should be no doubt that our response to it will shape the future of not only this decade, but also the future of the 21st Century. “There is a single species responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic – us.” These are the stark words of the authors of the 2019 UN global assessment report IPBES (which warned that human activity is threatening one million species worldwide) in a recent article. According to the IPBES team, “Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture, intensive farming, mining and infrastructure development, as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a ‘perfect storm’ for the spillover of diseases.” Quite simply, in any sort of recovery from this pandemic, “Business as usual will not work.”
These words should be the guiding principles for any global response to the coronavirus crisis, in that it recognises the intrinsic link between the three great crises of our times: coronavirus, climate, and ecology.
What binds these three crises is that human health is inextricably dependent on the health of the natural world, and that the status quo has been driving and continues to drive the destruction of this world upon which we are wholly reliant. Surely one of the most damaging words in western economic and political discourse since the Second War World has been ‘growth’. Growth in its status-quo-application means pursuing the impossible: aiming for infinite growth on a finite planet. 28
It is the mindset of GDP-obsession, of turnover, profit and rising projections, of ‘growing the pie’ so that
more people can get a slice, without recognising that before everyone will get their fill, we’ll have run out of ingredients.
Infinite growth runs inherently against the grain of nature. The real, and damaging, ‘growth-mindset’ shows itself to be fundamentally lacking in resilience, for the economy crashes when growth screeches to a halt, as seen when the value of raw materials such as oil falls as low as -$40 a barrel. Nothing in nature grows ad infinitum so why should we base our economy on such an unnatural premise? A regenerative economic model is what is needed for the post-coronavirus future, one that combines human and natural health, seeing both as parts of the same planetary whole.
As Lord Stern (who warned us in 2006 about the perils of continuing on our business-as-usual trajectory) has recently said, “The nature and shape of this recovery will determine our future. It is crucial [it] does not lock in our exposure to the great risks of climate change.”
Indeed, there are a whole host of names and plans for what has come to be more widely known as a green new deal, or a just transition from a carbongrowth-based economy to a regenerative-zero-carbon future. One suggests that if the Antonio Guterres was US President rather than UN Secretary General (with a budget of over $3 trillion rather than $3 billion) the likelihood of a cooperative United States leading the global response to meet these crises, and implementing this transition, would be considerably higher.
Speaking last month, Guterres argued that, “The separation of health and environmental policy is
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