By Don White.

Two recent articles on COVID-19 give spot-on assessments of mistakes we made in dealing with the virus and the opportunity this same crisis gives us for dealing with even larger problems.

The first is a review of a just published book by Lancet Editor-in-Chief, Richard Horton. Dr. Horton spent his time during his country’s recent lockdown detailing failures on two fronts: (1) lack of preparation for the pandemic known to be coming; and (2) inadequate responding to the pandemic when it arrived.

Both failures proved to be critical and “provided evidence of government misconduct, reckless acts of omission that constituted breaches in the duties of public office.” And both were the “result of missed opportunities and appalling misjudgements.”

Similar failures occurred in Canada, as well. Despite building evidence to the contrary, Ottawa continued claiming the number of COVID-19 cases and risk of transmission in Canada was low. Returning travellers weren’t ordered to quarantine, which significantly spread the illness. Pervasive lack of provincial regulation of long-term care resulted in Canada’s proportion of COVID-19 deaths in these facilities being double that of other countries.

These same failures in confronting the reality of the novel coronavirus are also found in responses to two other, even larger issues: climate change and ecological collapse.

Average global temperatures have been increasing every year. So has desertification, along with atmospheric and surface pollutants. We are now in the midst of the Holocene extinction, a.k.a. the sixth mass extinction and/or Anthropocene extinction marked by the decimation of a massive number of species and ecosystems caused by human activity.

Despite the evidence of what’s down the road environmentally, and of what has already arrived, we continue to respond inadequately on both these fronts. Most governments continue to ignore the urgency of warnings about the future and to deal inadequately with environmental effects already here. Most actions amount to little more than tokenism, and every year temperatures increase while biodiversity declines.

But not all environmentalists see the connections between COVID-19 and environmental crises as being dire. An article written by environmentalist Jonathan Porritt argues that the COVID-19 pandemic not only points the way forward but also provides us with an opportunity to deal with the twin emergencies of climate change and collapsing eco-systems.

If governments restart their economies in the next couple of years by investing in low-carbon, nature-restoring communities and industries, Porritt believes we have a chance of meeting the challenges of climate change and ecosystem collapse that we are currently facing. However, if we only work to restore the old ways that we put on hold when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we are well and truly screwed.

It would be a mistake to think the current lessons of COVID=19 apply only narrowly to economic models and to the related policies of governments. We need to remind ourselves of the original, broader meaning of “economy”: household management. And we need to include factors like culture, inclusion, and inequities in our thinking. The sum total of our past decisions at many economic, cultural, and political crossroads have produced the crises we now face.

Which begs the question of responsibility. Who ar the “we” that are at fault?

Dr. Horton is unequivocal in placing the blame for the UK’s failure to deal adequately with the COVID-19 pandemic. He states that politicians and bureaucrats, scientists, and the rest of us are responsible for what he sees as a gross betrayal of the public trust.

As for going forward, Crawford Killan sums up his review of Horton’s book like this: “How we are to achieve a pandemic-proof society is up to us.” Richard Horton states in parallel, “if we fail [to change] we will have no one to blame but ourselves.”

How do these views shake down for us living in Nanaimo? For one, they point to personal responsibility both for avoiding COVID-19 and for correcting environmental degradation. Before a vaccine and/or treatment for COVID-19 are available, personal safety ultimately depends on whether we, individually, stay safe, wear masks, maintain safe distance from each other. Similarly, each of us needs to support new ways of structuring our city and our thinking about personal entitlement in this world of limited resources. To reduce the prospects of climate change and ecological collapse, each of us needs to acknowledge that “equitable” refers to sharing with others, including other species, on which our own survival depends.

We can start by publicly and officially acknowledging that municipal “wealth” comes from more than just its human “tax base.” We can create and implement policy for making room for other species, plant and animal. We can evaluate local decisions for their ecological quality, not just the increase of humans they promote and the dollars they deposit directly or indirectly into City coffers.

Nanaimo still has a wealth of resources, natural and cultural. As residents of this city, we can choose to protect our riches by not squandering them on attempts to restart clearly outdated, local economic initiatives with narrow ideas of “progress” that benefit only the few. We can challenge all levels of government who legislate on the principle that undeveloped areas to have no value. We can acknowledge that some of our undeveloped areas are among our greatest assets. And we can, above all, stress the immediacy of action.

No one who understands the concept of a tipping point can accept continuing delay in making necessary changes. “Change” and “now” must be watchwords for all levels of government, local, provincial, federal, and personally. If we continue to go forward with only token responses to our crises, “too little, too late” will inevitably be our epitaph.