Sickness and Death are base fears for us Humans. One of the oldest professions is that of the Physician. In time of need – physical incapacity and fear for our own mortality, those who offer solutions and support are in high demand and are venerated. Now is such a time and so to the Nurses, Doctors, Epidemiologists, Lab technicians and Public Health professionals of all kinds I offer my gratitude for your service to all of us.

You have been warning us for a long time that something like this could happen…

And whilst the professional carers, healers and other assorted bleeding-edge-of-this-thing professionals do their demanding and dangerous jobs, informing public policy in no uncertain terms and with the urgency this crisis demands. Let’s widen the lens…

we knew this was coming…

For decades, the World Health Organization has been telling us we need to prepare for the possibility of a Pandemic – most recently in September 2019. Such preparation has no immediate benefit. It diverts financial resources from the profit of the moment. However the risk has been taken seriously enough that over most of the developed world, Disease Control has been taken seriously. We have labs. We have resources. Early warning systems are in place. We now have gene-sequencing tools and the ability to rapidly communicate at a high level about potential pathogens.

And yet – this is no magic bullet. Building a vaccine that does no harm and is effective takes time – as the only way to refine it is to test it on real living humans. This takes time. And we are all now, collectively, buying time so that our Health Professionals can cope whilst the painstaking work of developing an effective, safe Vaccine is urgently underway. It is likely to be 12 months out at best. Meanwhile the best we can hope for is clinical trials of drug therapies that we already have that may be effective. No magic bullets there either. Conclusion – this is going to be difficult, costly in lives and money, disruptive like nothing in our lifetimes and who knows what we will be on the far side of this.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a pioneer in Palliative and End-of-life Care suggested a model for the stages that someone goes through when they are faced with a terminal diagnosis. Shock/Denial – Anger – Bargaining – Depression/Grief – Acceptance. This is not a perfect model for what we are going through, but perhaps it has something to teach us. Collectively I believe we are in Shock/Denial. We want to get back to ‘Normal’ – back into our comfort zones. The great Orange Zombie is touting ‘getting America back to work’ within weeks. Meanwhile New York is ground-zero.

There is no way back – the only way out is through. So knowing the other emotional stages are coming, perhaps there are things we can do individually and collectively to move through to a place where we can create a new world beyond this – Acceptance. And from there, who knows what is possible…

Gaia’s warning

Mother Nature does not negotiate. The Mountains are indifferent to what we think is important.

Can you think of one thing in your life that you value, that retains that value in the absence of clean air, fresh water or your health? Does it retain that value if it is at the expense of those things for your Children?

Our Economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Biosphere.

Collectively, we have been behaving as if the Economy is a real thing. It is a construction. And in the way we have created it up until now, it is at odds with the natural world. Ergo – it is at odds with our very survival.

Our whole economic model is based on the notion of continual growth. Right now we are receiving a brutal global education in what continual growth means, at an accelerated scale of days.

In economic circles, 3% annual growth is considered to be a good thing. This rate of growth implies that the economy doubles in size every 20 years. Now – can you imagine the global economy being twice the size it is right now? Even if, as is often touted, that processes are becoming more energy efficient and less polluting? Out on the margins this growth is destroying forests for beef production and palm-oil plantations, vacuuming out the oceans, pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, destroying rain forests and soils. Our Scientists (planetary Health Professionals) have been reporting on the results with consistency and increasing alarm since the 1980s.

We have been, in no uncertain terms, warned that we as a species are on collision course with planetary limits. The Science is clear. There are a few nay-sayers, even well-educated ones. They are outliers. Do you want to listen to someone right now who does not believe that Viruses cause disease? Why then would you listen to people so far outside the Academic consensus? If not to attempt to stay in denial? (see above).

If we do not change course, then a depleted, ravaged biosphere with an unstable, unpredictable warmed climate awaits us. Soon.

Our response to Covid-19 over the last few weeks has slowed the pace at which the planet is being polluted and burned. Clear water and Dolphins in Venice have resulted. The vast pollution from the global factory of China has waned. Here over the Strait of Georgia, the pall of smog visible against the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula has departed. Con-trails crisscrossing the sky have all but ceased. The roads are quieter. I am hearing more birds. No cruise ships.

In this pause, whilst our Leaders struggle with the impossible puzzle of returning to the great exponential hike to disaster. When the clear mathematics of viral spreading shows how many lives would be sacrificed to do so too soon. When many of us are looking at our own household Economics and wondering how to make it work. There is a chance to reflect. I think we need to take it.

How many more warnings?

Gaia has just put a warning shot across our bows – to use a Naval metaphor. If we continue on this course, then this Pandemic is just the start. Our encroaching further into wild places to decimate them for brief profit will expose more non-human Virus reservoirs. Melting glaciers are also revealing their ancient loads of biological materials, hidden for millennia. And that is just the world of potential pathogens. How about soil, food, fresh water, reliable weather, flooding. Insurance companies who profits depend on predictability are sounding the alarm. Losses will soon become uninsurable. Then what?

In this pause – what do we want to do? The world will be changed when we emerge from this crisis. What do we want that world to be? What do we want to rebuild into? More of the same? Or are we, this time, going to listen to our planetary Health Professionals and re-design the way we live and engage in that great task in a new partnership with the Planet?

I believe that this is a crossroads in our evolution as a species. There is a leap to be made.

There is an alternative. Extinction.

Choose.