While our economies buckle and strain under the weight of the coronavirus, nature has taken a rare breath of fresh air - and incidentally, so have we. Carbon emissions have dropped significantly across the globe and air pollution has plummeted. Our roads are traffic free and we have been forced to adopt more minimalistic lifestyles, together with our loved ones and our families.
Amidst these circumstances unprecedented in our lifetimes, there is a great deal of anxiety and stress about the future - all of it understandable, and shared also by myself. My own plans and hopes for the future have all been thrown into doubt.
I find myself as trapped as anybody else - stuck indoors and on the cliff edge of a global economic recession which will affect me bitterly at the early stages of my career. Therefore, my relief at this brief moment of respite granted to nature is balanced out by the hardship that must be endured. Nonetheless, some weeks into this pandemic and all the time spent indoors have all offered up a few lessons worth considering for the aftermath of this crisis.
First of all, scientists have been saying that the only way to avert the worst effects of climate change is an economic mobilisation and transformation the likes of which we have not seen since World War 2. Such a process seemed unimaginable some weeks ago, and yet here we are, with governments across the world embarking on radical economic programmes and measures to weather this storm.
Politicians who laughed at the idea of assisting the man in the street in times of need are now rushing to offer cash handouts to prevent a total meltdown. The pre-existing weaknesses of our global economy have also been exposed once again, just as they were in the last financial crisis which started in 2008. Simply printing money to prop up markets without addressing underlying structural issues merely kicks the ball farther down the court, until something like coronavirus comes along to upset the house of cards. We drive future generations further into debt without tackling the speculators who distort our financial system and make us more vulnerable to system shocks. In any case, this pandemic has taught us that mass mobilisation to address a crisis is indeed possible, one way or another. There are answers to our problems - it is merely a question of having the willpower to take the necessary action.
This crisis has also taught us just how fragile our global economic order actually is. Companies which depend on complex and highly specific supply chains are immediately impacted once one link in that chain is disrupted. Although experts have been warning for years that the world was ill prepared for an inevitable pandemic, we did little to prepare, and in most cases, we have been very late to act. This is a familiar problem, and we end up paying far higher costs because of our short-sightedness.
The consequences of late action are particularly being seen in the United States at the moment, which is being hard hit by coronavirus as the number of infected soars. With its lack of healthcare coverage for the most vulnerable, it is a recipe for disaster. Our systems are more fragile than we think. If coronavirus can do this to the global economic and social order, just imagine how much more devastating climate change will be if we do not act to minimise the damage it is going to do.
We are already extremely late in the game. Climate change will negatively impact all the conditions we depend on to survive. Our quality of life, our purchasing power and our ability to survive will grow exponentially worse until we are living in a dystopia. Its effects are not going to be something we can ignore - we are all going to suffer to a devastating degree if after this pandemic, things just go back to normal and capitalism is allowed to return to a loop of endless unsustainable growth, consuming all of the world's resources down to its wild animals.
We are currently living with the bare minimum because of this pandemic - and certain jobs are still being practised to ensure that we still have running water, food on the table and healthcare when we get sick. How much more do we really need? Is it worth sacrificing the future of our planet for all the luxuries we are now going without? Indeed, in our little archipelago, why do we continue to sacrifice our heritage and our environment, which will be lost forever, for incredibly short-term gain?
What value are we actually fundamentally creating through our economic system - what quality of life and well-being are we producing for ourselves or for those we love? I hope this crisis teaches us that humanity has the ability to come together as a united force to address climate change, fix our economic system and return on a path where young people are allowed to look to the future with hope and optimism, both at home and abroad. We are showing that we are capable - let this pandemic be a wake-up call, and the trial run for the rebirth of our economic system to one which is sustainable, just and truly functional. Let us not keep making the same mistakes over and over again.