Corona Virus, Covid-19
and Climate Change
Unprecedented threat of the industrial way of life
working silently from within: invisible & unpredictable
death a lottery mostly amongst the vulnerable and elderly
changing habits, relationships, business and institutions
upturning social understandings of security and care
protecting others rather than self the new responsibility
the invisible, intangible becomes real in its potential effects
processes rather than substances become recognized
as the sources of interconnected, systemic change
much of our world is upended, nothing stays untouched
speed and indefinite extent an unusual combination to handle
we are challenged to be, think, act and choose differently
the impossible becomes possible once all consent
Is not the re-thinking & re- learning required for Covid-19
what had been needed for the last fifty years for climate change?
now its achieved within weeks & months for an invisible virus
a highly infectious global enemy invading us from within
the difficulties are analogous, different is only the temporality
the timescale of one is compressed & vastly extended in the other
for Covid-19 ‘now’ is open-ended, for climate change unending
too uncertain the one, too vast the other, both seem unreal
both require new modes of concern, of care and of compassion
to enhance survival in near and distant futures for us and successors
© Barbara Adam, 140320/190320