10 COVID-19 Silver Linings
Covid-19 its here it’s real and nobody wished it to be. I’m an optimist though.
Here are 10 COVID-19 Silver Linings
1. Carbon and pollution down
On the back of the unexpected canceled flights, the empty buildings, the closing factories and the working from home, Covid-19 might be the shot in the arm the world needed to have any chance of meeting vital long term existential 2050 emission targets. China’s carbon emissions dropped by a quarter when Covid-19 cases peaked there in February. Global GHG emissions are now guaranteed to drop very significantly this year vs 2019. The once hopeless long game has just become a little more hopeful. This could be very bad medicine but it could cure the planetary patient eventually.
There has been such a reduction in Nitrous Dioxide pollution that by some estimates we are net winning on human life with this virus. For those keeping score at home as of today. That is 77,000 saved from lower pollution and many less than that dead from Covid-19. That could change of course but as of now, that is the state of play!
Closer to the ground, the calm blue waters in Venice have not been clearer in decades now.
2. UBI sentiment up and it may never go away.
If anyone said in January, that Andrew Yang would be out of the Democrat race but Trump would be proposing his flagship UBI to arrive in 2020 you would have said it was inconceivable. For reasons which are awful this brilliant thing is true. The American people might get a taste for UBI and appreciate the policies of Mr Yang long after the pandemic has peaked.
With Pandemic bringing a cross party truce, this new reality might feed into even the more centrist parts of the Democrats party. If the Republicans are doing it, and at that point everyone is agreeing on it. It will be difficult to take away again. Similar things without the same name are happening in Canada and the UK. UBI could be a lasting COVID-19 legacy and a very powerful one for millions of lives
3. Oil prices are down and not getting back up the same way.
Oil down to a 30 year lows and it is going to take the worst of those oil companies out of business. Ross Dornan, the UK Oil and Gas spokesman said: “The first week of March saw the most dramatic fall in oil price in almost 30 years and it remains uncertain as to how the market is going to evolve in the coming months as the coronavirus impact increases each day.”
“Alongside this, the gas price has more than halved in the last 12 months, and we face a situation where production revenues are set to be almost 50 percent lower than they were two years ago despite the same level of output.”
The oil and gas market collapse has wiped billions from the value of UK companies, and could threaten the long-term survival of weaker firms.
The big oil players are well financed and are on the surface serious about climate change. They have the financial leverage, existential need and of course PR requirement to be the change. The small oil companies on the other hand have no such motivations. Covid could be the end of small oil forever Leaving only surviving western oil companies dedicated to the long term end of oil.
4. Phone use and social interaction.
Ever found yourself like a click-bate dopamine pavlovian zombie? Ready to react to any ping the device makes? Well it is you and everyone else on the train.
It has crept up on us as a society, but we know we are all phone addicts of the highest order. We all know it is bad for us and society and yet here we are. But now we are looking up and interacting with our fellow humans. Sure it is to avoid them at a safe social distance. But it makes us realise. It is actually perfectly possible to pass, keep a safe distance, and smile mutually at the fact you are doing it. We are flattening the curve together and distancing is an act of substance and love for our unknown fellow humans. We are not there yet, but congratulations on thinking about others and not being self involved is the sexy new social signal. Much more attractive than staring at your phone.
5. Experts are back in vogue
Experts are back and about bloody time. Between clowns and a conman strongman, we have missed knowledge, wisdom, sense and sincerity. Well, we need them now because them experts understand what viruses are, how they spread and how fast. We don’t know these things, we are not epidemiologists or virologists we are just people who want to survive all this!
So we are back in the hands of the competent again. The sanguine and sage experts reclaim their place again atop mount technocratica. The sight of authoritarians, but also politicians of all stripes standing behind their chief scientists, epidemiologists and top medical officers is the pro-science messaging this world has lacked for too long. The renaissance of rationalism is overdue. Just sad it took a pandemic to do it.
6. Battle lines in the war on truth
Covid-19 has seen a re-alignment of our news diets. Just like a keto and a vegan friend trying to find a dish to share, agreed-upon news has been in short supply 2016–2019. We have split into bespoke news sources filtered through our online media bubbles dictated by algorithms we don’t see. Presidential doubt about the Mainstream Media has added to a new multiplicity of unreliable new sources. Covid-19 is the reason to pull facts together and creditably report them. It is a matter of life and death and traditional media outlets are doing a fine job of It while discrediting misinformation in a uniform and unified way.
This has in turn changed new media and the change could be lasting, Twitter, Facebook and Google are joining forces for the first time to fight misinformation.
They say ““We are working closely together on COVID-19 response efforts. We’re helping millions of people stay connected while also jointly combating fraud and misinformation about the virus, elevating authoritative content on our platforms, and sharing critical updates in coordination with government health care agencies around the world,”
Truth is back baby and its more important than ever! Maybe as a society we will not be so careless to let it go again in a wash of motivated reasoning blown through the air by filter bubbles, fake news and views. If the legacy the virus leaves is a commitment to truth and the ability of the media’s attention to outlast a 24 hour news cycle we will all come out of it eating a much better media diet.
7. Family and community is back.
The mass concern, the obligation to look after those older and perhaps less informed than us, time stuck at home has ironically got us on the phones, on skype and back in touch with family. We are checking in, cheering up, and chatting like never before. A global pandemic has got us really talking, worrying and fretting for sure but keeping in touch sincerely not just texting. As we learn to creatively entertain and overcome through this. We might end up better broader communicators for it.
We can connect with neighbours and help each other out and millions are. The crisis has coined the word caremongering meaning to help vulnerable people. Let the Virus go and this sentiment stay!
8. Art and relaxation.
This break from our normal rhythm through the enforced isolation creates time with nothing to do, time to think, to read, to create and consume art. Create or consume, ultimately, this is an opportunity for us to slow down and reflect on things The opportunity to produce art for the sake of art itself is perhaps the highest privilege of our civilisation. If possible, we should treat this isolation as that privilege. Of course not everyone is going to live through a good time right now. But there is space to re-engage with your skills, passions and hobbies, I would encourage you to do so. Just a couple of ideas,
For those with kids, get creative. Here is the wonderful Jon Burgerman offering fun art projects for those with basic art supplies around the home (this is part 3 of a mini series) and by the end of this one you will be making skype calls more visually arresting.
Why not, have a proper listen to that favorite album like this. Maybe write up the experience as this journalist did. Our brightest and best and ideas may have happened but passed us by in the rush for the ever unreachable now. Going back, reflecting on our past thoughts, doodles works and projects and reacquainting ourselves with creativity could yield brighter creativity in the future. The best inventions and art may lie dormant in us.
9. Nature bats last
Nature hasn’t bothered the world too significantly overall in the last 75 years. A few mass events, tsunamis, volcanos, here and there but nothing global, nothing like this.
This virus is a reminder of our precariousness as a species in these places we call cities in this idea called society doing a thing called civility every day. We shine bright lights, play loud music, and travel in metal boxes and pretend we can forget nature. Well nature has come to call us at the moment.
In this world when our species is done, nature will still be here. We know this truth to be self evident; nature bats last. This virus is a reminder of the endless indeterminant ever changing form of this world’s nature. It was here before humans and will be here after. We may not go anytime soon as a species. But let us be humble, we will go at a time. This is a little reminder to us all that one day we all will.
With our powers of cooperation I have no doubt our species will overcome Covid-19 and survive, bruised but alive. There is no better way to prick our obscene omniscient delusions than this virus. As a species, while we learn the form and strength of this virus, it reflects back at us our own humanity existing not as masters of nature, but as a part of it. Through this we learn humility and respect for the ultimate host.
10. Respect for the tireless, fearless and positivity.
Bravo to the tireless fearless nurses, getting heralded and cheered around the world You know what, same goes for cleaning staff and supermarket workers. You are keeping us alive in difficult circumstances. Lets hope they all leave this episode in our history with renewed credibility, authority, respect… and a pay rise out of all this.
Stay positive everyone because…we know how to beat this and can see how it ends. China, big old massive China. Well in all of China there were only 39 new cases on 19th March down from a high of 14,108 on 12th of Feb and today in Wuhan where it all began there were no new cases recorded. We have seen through the hard work, difficulty and diligence of the Chinse how to get out of this. That makes the whole thing less apocalyptic, scary and unknown.
