COVID-19 and Nature? Project Syndicate

Initial news reports on the COVID-19 pandemic focus on prevention, case totals and economic impact. Attention could soon turn to the crowding, lack of biodiversity and climate change that allows pathogens to emerge and spread around dense communities and a human population that approaches 8 billion. Some public health analysts contend that the world can anticipate more epidemics due to destruction of natural habitats including the Amazon, limited freshwater sources and the oceans. The businesses and individuals that lacked savings and supply reserves struggle during this crisis, explains Robert Skidelsky, for Project Syndicate, and perhaps societies should do more to arrange reserves and protections for the environment as well. Skidelsky warns governments not “to continue relying on technical fixes to get us out of any hole that our profligate lifestyles land us in” and “We should use our enforced downtime to ponder what solutions would work.” – YaleGlobal

COVID-19 and Nature? Project Syndicate

The COVID-19 virus may ultimately fail to jolt humanity out of its profligate habits, and the world should rethink humanity's relationship with the planet
Robert Skidelsky
Friday, April 17, 2020

Read the article from Project Syndicate about COVID-19 prompting worries about environmental protection.

 

 Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords, is Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University. The author of a three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes, he began his political career in the Labour party, became the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Treasury affairs in the House of Lords, and was eventually forced out of the Conservative Party for his opposition to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999.

 

© Project Syndicate - 2020