Slowdown in lockdown opens new possibilities

LAST Sunday, for the first time, Civis took part in St Paul’s Cathedral’s 10am Eucharist wearing his gardening clothes: those who’ve seen those garments will know they’re far from immaculate, or even, for that matter, intact.

What people wear to church shouldn’t matter, but somehow that view doesn’t seem to be universal. There were, however, no disapproving looks, because the service, due to the lockdown, was attended through YouTube, via a link on the Cathedral website (Sunday School and Choral Evensong were also broadcast that way).

It was (almost) the 1662 Book of Common Prayer service, with which Civis grew up, but hasn’t participated in for a long time (normally it’s only used for the Cathedral’s 8am service, when Civis is back in bed).

The Gospel reading was about new life: Lazarus being raised from the dead.

That, and the formal Invitation to Communion, addressing those who ‘‘repent of [their] sins and are in love and charity with [their] neighbours, and intend to lead a new life’’ seemed especially relevant to life after the Covid19 crisis.

Covid19 has, in a short time, brought massive changes, temporary it might be assumed, to the routines, way of life, and underlying assumptions of nations round the world.

In China a controlling dictatorship has apologised (!) for a local authority’s actions in punishing the doctor who publicised the effects of the new coronavirus. Neoliberal governments, even in the US, which have touted ‘‘the market’’ as the social and economic grail, have adopted socialiststyle distributions to citizens, and corporate welfare in bailing out businesses.

CEOs and senior staff of some companies have taken pay cuts.

Air NZ CEO Greg Foran (a relatively lowpaid executive) will take $250,000 less than his official $1.65 million salary (he should be able to afford it: he got $NZ20 million a year in his previous job at Walmart, and his reduced pay is still 47.5 times the 80% of the 2019 minimum wage on which many New Zealanders, including Air NZ employees, off work during the shutdown, will struggle to house and feed themselves).

And as governments shut down nations and their economies to save lives, pollution and carbon emissions have dropped dramatically. In China smog (which kills 1.6 million people a year) cleared and CO2 emissions dropped by 25%, NO by 40% and CO by 50%.

In Auckland, during the first six days of lockdown, levels of nitrogen oxides (which exacerbate respiratory disease) plummeted by 90%, effectively reaching zero in West Auckland one day, thanks to reduced motor vehicle use.

Newspapers, radio, and television (and, no doubt, social media) have been offering suggestions as to how those restricted to their homes and ‘‘bubbles’’ during the lockdown can fill their time. It might be wise to include among those activities some deliberate thinking about what the crisis is showing about New Zealand’s 21stcentury way of life. A couple of matters come immediately to mind.

Covid19 has underlined the value of cleaners and supermarket workers, but they’re often paid the bare minimum wage. Significantly increasing the incomes of all the lowestpaid, and decreasing those of the highest paid, could help reverse the obscene income inequality which has been splintering New Zealand society over the past 30 or so years, and driving worker poverty.

Covid19 has proved nations can respond dramatically to emergencies.

A much greater crisis than Covid19 faces Earth: climate change due to excessive greenhouse gas emissions, from fossil fuel use (during a recent dogwalk Civis counted five cars linked to one smallish suburban house), and the destructive pursuit of ‘‘growth’’ based on consumerism, particularly by ‘‘‘developed’’ nations (plenty to repent there).

Lockdowns and the near cessation of international air travel have temporarily reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Permanent, properly funded, dramatic policy changes (as one example, good free or very lowcost public transport, to discourage solo car use) could bring meaningful longterm greenhouse gas reduction, showing ‘‘love and charity’’ to all.

‘‘A new life’’ indeed.