Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Al Jazeera, the solution to the Corona Virus pandemic is “planned degrowth” and more government funding of renewables.
The coronavirus outbreak is part of the climate change crisis
Therefore, climate action should be central to our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The speed and scope of the coronavirus outbreak have taken world governments by surprise and left the stock market reeling. Since the virus first appeared in China’s Hubei province, it has infected over 700,000 people and killed more than 33,000 across the world in less than six months.
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These sweeping and unprecedented measures taken by the government and international institutions could not but make some of us wonder about another global emergency that needs urgent action – climate change.
The two emergencies are in fact quite similar. Both have their roots in the world’s current economic model – that of the pursuit of infinite growth at the expense of the environment on which our survival depends – and both are deadly and disruptive.
In fact, one may argue that the pandemic is part of climate change and therefore, our response to it should not be limited to containing the spread of the virus. What we thought was “normal” before the pandemic was already a crisis and so returning to it cannot be an option.
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While some have called for climate change to be just as drastic as the one undertaken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it should not be. We need a just climate transition which ensures the protection of the poor and most vulnerable and which is integrated into our pandemic response. This would not only reverse the climate disaster we are already living in but also minimise the risk of new pandemics like the current one breaking out.
The just climate transition should involve economic reforms to introduce “planned degrowth” that puts the wellbeing of people over profit margins. The first step towards that is ensuring the stimulus packages that governments are announcing across the world are not wasted on bailing out corporations.
We must avoid at all costs a situation where unscrupulous big businesses and state actors are allowed free reign to reinforce appalling global inequality while the rest of civil society is quarantined at home.
We should demand that government funds are instead allocated to decentralised renewable energy production in order to start implementing the Green New Deal and create new meaningful jobs amid the post-COVID-19 economic crisis. In parallel, we should ensure the provision of universal healthcare and free education, the extension of social protection for all vulnerable populations and the prioritisation of affordable housing.
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Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/coronavirus-outbreak-part-climate-change-emergency-200325135058077.html
There is no evidence that degrowth would help reduce the risk of pandemics. If you look at the horrific pandemics of the past, like Smallpox and the Black Death, carbon friendly localised energy systems like wind turbines and water wheels were no help whatsoever to our ancestors fending off deadly disease.
Technology, mass production and science is what has saved us from Smallpox and the Black Death.
Understanding of vaccines, mass production and utter determination saved us from Smallpox.
We’re still at risk from the Black Death. Yersinia Pestis is still out there. For now it is under control, thanks to high tech antibiotics and constant vigilance, but if our civilisation ever falters the Black Death will return. The Black Death still occasionally infects and kills people in the USA.
The author Vijay Kolinjivadi also talks about how we are being exposed to new diseases by our contact with animals, thanks to the expansion of our industrial civilisation.
Surely the solution to this type of constant risk, where humans are in constant contact with dangerous species, is to totally eradicate the animals which pose a risk to humans. A Chinese study in 2017 found that the bats which started the current pandemic carry thousands of other viruses, some potentially even worse than Covid-19.
I’d rather a few species of bats or whatever face deliberate extinction, than take the risk of another Chinese Coronavirus pandemic.
I look forward to Qatar immediately stopping its oil production!
No need to eradicate bats, just ban their hunting and consumption and close wet markets across the world.
We should be expecting a fall in the level of atmospheric CO2 from today’s 414ppm to perhaps the touted ‘safe level’ of 350ppm as a consequence of pandemic decarbonisation. If this doesn’t happen, it will show that man made CO2 is not the climate driver and that all Green New Deals and Zero Carbon ambitions are futile.
“These sweeping and unprecedented measures taken by the government and international institutions could not but make some of us wonder about another global emergency that needs urgent action – climate change.
The two emergencies are in fact quite similar. Both have their roots in the world’s current economic model – that of the pursuit of infinite growth at the expense of the environment on which our survival depends – and both are deadly and disruptive…. The pandemic is part of climate change and therefore, our response to it should not be limited to containing the spread of the virus”.
Once you are on board the activism boat everything else has to fit the assumptions your activism to keep that boat afloat.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/02/03/hidden-hand/
Governments have no money only a printing press. Zimbabwe still dollars will not be the solution.
I don’t want to command opinions nor set trends. However, after 9/11 and the ways it impacted my “office” life, I have absolutely no respect whatsoever for whatever is said and promoted by Al Jazeera.
Freedom of journalistic expression is one thing, purposely distilled propaganda is another.
Good posting, Eric. Al Jazeera is a mouthpiece for radical terrorists and will utilize any theme to motivate the low-information crowd into action, chaos and anarchy included, to assist their radical views. The Spanish Flu killed 30 to 50 million at the end of WWI, at an atmospheric level of 300 ppm CO2, and the current China Wuhan Flu is on its way to about a million (?) fatalities at an atmospheric level of 410 ppm CO2, so where’s the proof that the two, CAGW and pandemic deaths, are correlated? I’ll take 410 ppm for only a million, Alex.
The most obvious is the correlation with high levels of galactic radiation and low solar activity. They affect large temperature jumps and the increase of troposphere ozone. Also, an increase in UV radiation at the surface weakens immunity. The increase in ionizing radiation at the surface lowers people’s immunity around the world.
https://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/
There is nobody of the climate activists with the look over the whole, complete scenario or global ecology.
They don’t see what happens, when closing one door, to the rest of the house.
They miss the the complete overview, how one is connected to the other.
Silly…
Sorry, wrong article.
Brazil may become a new great epidemic focus Covid-19.
“The coronavirus outbreak is part of the climate change crisis.” What climate change ‘crisis’ ?
Was I the only one who thought about AGW when Dr. Fauci talked about the limits of modeling and his experience with modeling extremis?
Technology has saved us from the collapse of civilization predicted by Malthus and his more recent contemporaries, the Club of Rome, etc. If resources start to deplete, we find a way to use less, we find a way to substitute, we find a way to find more. Whatever, we find a way.
What are the conditions necessary to continue the development of technology?
Necessity is not the mother of invention. There’s darn little technology coming out of Zimbabwe.
The case of the Soviet Union is instructive. link Soviet technological development usually lagged behind that of America and Europe. What did that cost the Soviets? Efficiency. That left them exposed to resource shortages of all kinds. It looks to me like Ronald Reagan egged them into an arms race. They couldn’t keep up and collapsed. IMHO, they would have collapsed eventually anyways.
So, we have a tiger by the tail. If technological advance slows, we will devolve, slowly or quickly, back to the stone age.
The one condition that has shown itself to promote technological advance is a consumer driven capitalist economy. The environmentalist watermelons, green on the outside and red inside, do not understand that.
“Surely the solution to this type of constant risk, where humans are in constant contact with dangerous species, is to totally eradicate the animals which pose a risk to humans.”
Really? Kill every animal that poses a risk? knowing (or not) that all animals, including humans, carry viruses within them that one day can mutate and cause highly contagious and deadly diseases?
The stupid, it burns!!!
De-growthing and more government funding. How will that work then? Is it really necessary to explain that government funding comes from surplus from growth?
“Surely the solution to this type of constant risk, where humans are in constant contact with dangerous species, is to totally eradicate the animals which pose a risk to humans.”
Bats eat tons of crop eating insects and are also part of the pollination process. A logical approach is remove the point where people meet bats. Otherwise the laws of unintended consequence will have even more things to do as if there aren’t enough already.
Headline in the boxed quote in the above article “The coronavirus outbreak is part of the climate change crisis”.
Ah, ha!– – there it is. I have been predicting that it would be only a matter of time before this exact claim would appear.
What’s that saying? . . . “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” (attributed to US politician Rahm Emanuel)
You can expect a large number of all deaths in the UK. Also among teenagers.
n.n,
This is the stuff of RCP8.5, the do nothing scenario.
From the article: “some of us wonder about another global emergency that needs urgent action – climate change.
The two emergencies are in fact quite similar.”
Not really. One, the Wuhan virus outbreak, is a real crisis, and the other, the Human-caused Climate Change “emergency” is just science fiction.
From the article: “This would not only reverse the climate disaster we are already living in”
There is no evidence for this. My neck of the woods has fantastic weather. No weather disaster going on here. Or anywhere else that I can see.
From the article: “The first step towards that is ensuring the stimulus packages that governments are announcing across the world are not wasted on bailing out corporations.”
Trump’s bailouts are bailouts for American workers who are employed by those corporations. Trump has said the money must be spent to keep the business alive and keep the employees employed, and corporations are not allowed to use the money to buy back their own stock.
One interesting item I heard had been put into the bill was about the Democrats insisting that none of Trump’s businesses would benefit from the stimulus package. I don’t know if that made it into the final bill or not, but that’s what they were wanting.
From the article: “We should demand that government funds are instead allocated to decentralised renewable energy production”
Good luck with that. Trump doesn’t have much good to say about windmills. He’s not a fan.
Alarmists still have problems understanding cause and effect.
The old axiom “if the only tool you have is a hammer you treat everything as if it were a nail” seems to ring true in this nonsensical babble. I’m quite surprised that these clowns don’t see that they are “jumping the shark” every time they put out rubbish like this.
What does one expect from Al Jazeera – it’s basically an offshoot of the BBC!
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/04/al-jazeera-journalists-this-isnt-the-first-time-weve-come-under-threat
His channel, award-winning and internationally recognised, is not the main target of the blockade. Its sister channel, al-Jazeera Arabic, which reaches far wider audiences and has more controversial coverage, is widely believed to be the real focus.
It was launched with a swath of staff from BBC Arabic in 1996 after Saudi partners connected to the ruling family forced the closure of the channel after a row about content.
“They took the spirit of the BBC with them to al-Jazeera,” said Ian Richardson, the last managing editor of BBC Arabic, who added he had kept in touch with staff after moving on. About two-thirds of BBC staff joined al-Jazeera, he said, and the dispute is likely to bring back painful memories of the previous turmoil they endured.
UK Covid-19 numbers have turned for worse. Tuesday update here:
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/UK-COVID-19.htm