We can change!
Climate change is the greatest threat to our existence in our short history on this planet. Nobody’s going to buy their way out of its effects."
-Mark Ruffalo, Actor & Environmentalist
We were in trouble long before the COVID- 19 assault. Climate change, soil degradation and food insecurity has been hitting us between the eyes for years; I myself chose to ignore it. I knew it was vaguely important, occasionally skimming articles on the topic. But to be honest I felt environmentalists were passionate zealots who had blown the whole sketchy topic out of proportion.
Even Prince Charles has attempted to convince us that the next eighteen months will determine if we survive or not, but there aren’t many listening!
I was in the middle of indulging in comfortable ignorance: how dare the doomsdayers interrupt me?
Now I feel their desperation, finally understanding that it is worse than we thought. In fact, if we sit, wait, and do nothing, our children and grandchildren will struggle to grow food, struggle with extreme weather conditions, and experience fires and floods of the like we can’t comprehend.
It wasn’t learning that the Artic permafrost had already begun thawing that made me wake up. Nor was it learning that Alaska reached higher temperatures than New York last year that shook me to the core. It wasn’t news that Greenland had 11 billion tonnes of ice melt in one day that made me take notice. It wasn’t even the fires that ravaged my country only months ago that made me take stock.
It was learning that our fertile soil is disappearing and that future generations won’t be able to grow food that finally hit home the terrible truth. Learning my grandchildren and their children will struggle to find food unless action is taken immediately shocked me; and even then, they will not be privilege to accessing the foods I have now. Volkert Engelsman, an activist with the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements told the forum at the FAO’s headquarters in Rome ‘we are losing 30 soccer fields of soil every minute because of current farming practices.’[i]We can’t grow food without healthy soil!
I love food but having immersed myself in nutrition research for many years I am embarrassed to say I had no understanding of the intricate web involving good nutrition, food systems, food production, soil health, and our climate.
In regards to other environmental issues, my excuses are abundant. Confusion about the science, disinterest in other parts of the globe, lack of understanding of the speed of change, faith in our leaders to fix the problem, faith in technology to save us, too busy looking at screens or focusing on my work are all possible excuses for inaction. There are many reasons why we dismiss the damage we have inflicted and throw our hands in the air believing we can do nothing.
According to scientists unplugging the modern world from fossil fuels needs to be done by 2050 at the latest.[ii] This seemed an impossible task.
"We don’t have time to sit on our hands as our planet burns. For young people, climate change is bigger than election or re-election. It’s life or death."
-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, US Politician & Activist
The possibilities
Perhaps now we understand our power? After the introduction to COVID -19 we had to work together globally to flatten the curve and protect our elderly and vulnerable. With that, a sense of power and responsibility was realised. Granted this power comes at the expense of much, with profound and lasting economic consequences and social sacrifice (no time to debate if global lockdown was the right approach). If any good can come of the COVID-19 let it be that we continue to work together to make significant, long term changes in the way we live, travel and use the earth’s resources.
We are waking up to a new world; a world where we can collectively change our fate. We have halted travel, factories closed, we began working from home and we are more mindful about waste. We became open to the idea of growing vegetables, keeping chickens, and baking bread; visible from the purchasing patterns during the initial panic.
COVID-19 has given us a pause, time to ponder what we want to change. It has created disorientation and fear but it also hurtled us towards a realm of endless possibilities to change for the better. Moments of crisis are also moments of potential.
But, we need to do even more than just abandon our previous destructive ways - we need to rebuild and regenerate. Perhaps the answer lies in the past as well as the present. With industrialized society we had become disconnected from ourselves, from others, and from our earth. We have forgotten our wild ways and pushed nature aside without realizing how much we rely on nature for oxygen, food and life.
Perhaps it really is an invitation to change our ways.
“Climate change knows no borders. It will not stop before the Pacific Islands and the whole of the international community here has to shoulder a responsibility to bring about sustainable development.”
-Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
[i] C Arsenault (2014). ‘Only 60 years of farming left if soil degradation continues-TRFN.
https://www.reuters.com/article/food-soil-farming/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues-trfn-idUSL6N0TP30P20141205 Accessed 2020.04.22.
[ii] J Tollefson (2018). ‘IPCC says limiting global warming to 1.5C will require drastic action.’ Nature Research. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06876-2
Accessed 2020.04.22.