Climate Change and Covid-19 prevention
Making significant progress towards reversing climate change involves sacrifice and change on a massive scale. Up until the coronavirus pandemic I saw no possibility of this ever happening to the degree that it had to happen. The pandemic though forced the issue since not to act meant possible illness and death–and a very uncomfortable and lonely death at that. To date, a relative few place climate change on the same level of urgency as the current pandemic. And many, including leaders in Washington and in many states, are even minimizing the pandemic, pretending that it’s over and no longer a threat to public health.
They ignore the current increasing numbers of infections among children, adolescents and young adults, choosing to forsake social distancing and wearing facial masks when advised or required. People in our culture often resist doing what government requires them to do. They tire of restrictions or lament the effects on the economy. Or perhaps their vanity tells them to not wear a mask since others will then be unable to see their handsome or pretty features. Or their concern for their privacy warrants resistance to effective contact tracing which is so vital to the control of the spread of the pandemic. At first, many opposed a ban on smoking, mandated seatbelts, motorcycle and bicycle helmets, and now for wearing a mask against the spread of coronavirus. Don’t Tread on Me, some declare, waving and bastardizing that old Revolutionary War flag, now alongside swastikas and Confederate flags. Without some regulations and laws and, yes, government, people can devolve into uroboros, the dragon that eats its own tail. Such is the direction we are headed.
These were the kinds of attitudes that brought down the Holy Roman Empire, a civilization few thought would end. But end it did, as will ours if we remain unwilling to accept what needs to be done and act with wisdom and resolve for the commonwealth.
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