Don’t go back to the old ‘normal’

If there is one thing that this crisis has demonstrated, it is that whatever ‘normal’ was before the pandemic – it was unsustainable. The climate emergency, of course, should have demonstrated this but that has always been predicated on predictions about the decades, even centuries, to come (the fires, floods and storms that make a near-constant appearance not withstanding).

The coronavirus is a real, tangible, devastating example. How fragile our entire economic, social and political set-up has been: that the poor hygiene standards of a ‘wet’ market in Wuhan, China, can cause massive unemployment, economic collapse, death and suffering around the globe, in a few short weeks. Too long our leaders and influencers have fiddled whilst the fire has been kindling. This should be a wake-up call. We cannot go back to ‘normal’ if we want any kind of stable, decent life, society and planet. If nothing else, this has shown that when the crisis comes – as it will do, again, and again, and again – the vast majority are unhesitating in putting people above profits. Let’s build on that when all this is over, and not forget what we have been through, and why. It is nurses, doctors, cleaners, delivery drivers, shop assistants, carers who are essential and keep our society functioning; celebrities, bankers and extremist trolls – either online or in the press – are useless when the crunch comes.

Alexander Wallace