A global change of direction

I think it's worth considering the long-term effects of the current coronavirus pandemic. For a time it'll lead to many types of shut-down and collapse. For a time it'll render many services and communications impossible to deliver. It may also inhibit the movements of aggressive armed forces as well as holidaymakers.

Many prominent people may die. Viruses can immobilise or kill anybody who gets infected, and anyone who needs to go into quarantine is effectively imprisoned. I can see a few coups taking place here and there around the world, perhaps for the better.

While the pandemic runs its course, people everywhere will need to change their daily routines, their priorities, and their general view of what is important to them. So it's an enforced opportunity to pause and rethink. It will also highlight the habits and practices that are selfish (poor personal hygiene, for instance) or positively unhelpful and anti-social at a time when good neighbourliness and pulling-together really matter. And I expect this to be reflected at national and global levels too. Countries that don't cooperate and assist will be seen as pariah countries, to their later disadvantage.

On the whole all this will probably turn out to be a Good Thing, an unexpected but timely reminder that everyone, everywhere may get infected, and that we need to set aside differences and divisions to control and defeat a common enemy. That hasn't really happened so far where man-made global warming is concerned, but now that we are stuck with two global threats, it is surely more likely that the message will get through and a change of direction taken in everyone's interests. And that those who resist and scoff will find their words raise fewer cheers and howls of support.

I can see entire industries going into sharp decline. Anything that damages people and the planet. Among them, inevitably, that part of the aviation industry devoted to the mass-movement of passenger traffic. The world will become a large place again, with many destinations seeming very far-away and hard to reach, unless fast, electrically-powered ships can be developed. Even so, there's a world of difference between flying the Atlantic is six hours, and taking two days to do it on some kind of giant hydrofoil. Though I suppose you could take your electric car with you for use at the other end. (I don't enjoy flying. A sea journey is much more appealing!)

I hope that attitudes undergo a permanent transformation too. It already seems blinkered and irresponsible to ignore the perils of uncontrolled industrialisation and land-clearance. What, really, is its purpose? And who, really, gets the main benefit? Certainly not ordinary people. It's time for much better planning, much more responsibility, much clearer and effective accountability. And we as individuals need to be more thoughtful about buying the products offered to us. Money talks, especially when withheld so that damaging products fail and disappear, and their without-conscience producers get justly hammered.