Embrace ‘other’ new normal
SINCE the movement control order (MCO) was first imposed on March 18 to curb the spread of the Covid19 virus, there has been much advocacy for and persistent promotion of the “new normal”. Beginning with staying home and washing hands frequently, we’ve learnt other new normal habits as we moved through the different MCO periods.
Now, in the recovery MCO period until Aug 31, with interstate travel allowed, the new normal habits we have to remember include not gathering in large numbers in addition to previous measures – washing hands, wearing face masks and social distancing in public, taking temperatures and recording phone numbers for contact tracing before entering commercial and government premises – must still be observed to ensure there is no resurgence of infections.
This new normal will, hopefully, be short-term, just until a vaccine is found. But what of the next pandemic or life-threatening disease outbreak? It has been generally accepted that climate change caused by human activities and excess consumption had a major role in birthing this pandemic. So another type of new normal must be established and its practices ingrained into daily lives so the possibility of a next pandemic is greatly reduced. These practices are nothing new and are part of the lives of many people throughout the world.
The many Rs of waste management are not new to many and the three basic Rs – reduce, reuse and recycle – are universally known. Find out more about the other Rs and integrate them into your life so they will become the other new normal of daily living for you; if you’re already doing some of it, try and do more.
Taking public transport, cycling or walking must become the other new normal as much as possible to reduce use of fossil fuel-powered private vehicles. Reduce the greenhouse gases generated from carbon-based fuels used to power lights, airconditioners and electrical appliances by switching to energy-saving lights and appliances and turning up (or even turning off) airconditioners. Switch off that light or appliance when not in use, use a fan instead of an airconditioner.
Not wasting water and reducing the amount you use daily must become a priority of this other new normal. Climate change is giving us either much too much water (floods), too little, or none at all (droughts) at any one time and even a tropical country like ours suffers from water stress. The World Health Organisation recommends 165 litres per person per day but in Malaysia, consumption averages over 200 litres. Water is a precious commodity over which future wars will be fought, and every concerted effort must be taken by all to reduce its consumption.
Eat less or no meat. There is enough plant-based food produced to feed the world but a vast majority of it is used for animal husbandry. Forests and jungles that store carbon dioxide and produce oxygen and peat land that stores even more carbon than trees are cleared to plant more crops to feed animals kept for meat. What’s more, the methane in flatulence emitted by livestock is a major contributor to climate change. Become vegetarian or vegan as the other new normal; if it proves difficult to stomach, then try being a flexitarian (primarily vegetarian with occasional meat/ fish in the diet) as an alternative.
Cutting down on our wants and thereby needing fewer of the materialistic things manufactured from minerals and resources mined from the ground or cut from trees must become the other new normal.
The over-exploitation of finite resources without recourse to sustainability devastates the ground we live, play, work and farm on; it fouls the air we breathe and the water we drink. We must learn to live fuller lives with better needs and fewer wasteful wants, and make it the other new normal.
Humans are on the brink of possibly wiping our own existence from this earth. Future generations will bear the brunt of worsening climate change and new pandemics, and the fear and anxiety of living every day in unpredictable conditions and with little resources. That could be their new normal, a daily struggle just to get by, without hope for a change for the better.
Climate change is already here but so too are practices that we can make the other new normal. It is time now to embrace this other new normal to avert climate change and another pandemic.
KOO WEE HON Petaling Jaya