I want to put forward the contentious argument that there have been more benefits to the coronavirus than negatives, and here’s why:
1) Despite the very sad loss of life, Covid-19 has transformed the planet towards a more environmentally sustainable model. Without the virus, this was not happening, or happening too slowly.
2) For example, airlines have cut emissions hugely, vehicle traffic is down considerably, more people are cycling/walking to work etc.
3) Many people are working from home and using enabling technology that makes their work just as effective as being in an office. This is now fact rather than theory.
4) Those workers not commuting now have a better work-life balance. One benefit is that many with gardens are now growing, eating and preserving their own produce.
5) Economies are operating at a more sustainable level i.e. reduced CO2 emissions. In agriculture, for example, the industrial agricultural model has failed dismally, and the benefits of purchasing locally produced products directly from small farmers have been highlighted, along with a growth in CSA and farmers markets.
6) And the main problem – unemployment. However, this slack can be taken up in new ways. This is the ideal time to reskill workers for the impending ‘Green New Deal‘. FDR had the vision to put the unemployed to work on wonderful public infrastructure projects, and Joe Biden’s new administration can do the same. This is the perfect time to move away from the fossil fuel driven monocropping and CAFO-based systems with their degradation of the environment towards a regenerative agriculture model that requires more workers for its functioing, resulting in a whole new workforce reacquiring long lost agricultural skills. Likewise many workers can be retrained for the renewable energy sector in jobs like PV panel manufacture and installation.
7) And the biggest benefits – there is now a real opportunity to tackle climate change and a much more realistic chance of meeting the goals established by the UN 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement. Combined with this will be an overall improvement in human health. The largest cause of death in the European Union is … air pollution.
Many countries are also experiencing rising obesity rates and the related diseases such as diabetes and high bliod pressure. The authors Dan Barber in ‘The Third Plate’ and Michael Pollan in ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ describe a new food model that is completely contrary to that of a diet based on processed foods, which only took off because of subsidised monocrops and people handing over food preparation to the large food corporations owing to their lack of time for home cooking.
So let us hope that world leaders really step up to the plate. Only time will tell.
