The Coronavirus and Climate Denialism
The Coronavirus and the Climate Crisis share many of the same traits. You could view the Coronavirus as an acute version of the Climate Crisis.
The same warnings, the same consequences, the same misinformation and know-nothingness on the part of political leadership. The same failure to act despite warnings from the scientific community.
The similarity of these two crises is the invisibility of the problem – you can’t see a Coronavirus or the carbon in the air. But you can see the mobilisation of Governments when things come to a head.
The absence of spectacle is the Climate Crisis’ biggest problem.
Flu epidemics are not unlikely events but a certainty according to the Virologists and Infectious Disease specialists. It’s not if, but when.
This is exactly what climate scientists, who have been studying climate change, have been saying for decades.
We don’t live outside of nature. We are subject to the laws of nature and sometimes it’s brutality.
Questions on whether global emergencies can be fixed through massive policy changes and capital spending have been answered. Billions and Trillions are now being spent by governments to tackle the Coronavirus pandemic.
That sort of investment was unthinkable when faced with crises regarding climate, poverty, homelessness, healthcare, nursing home care, etc., just a few weeks ago.
The cat is out of the bag.
George Byrne.