Science, Religion and COVID-19

If a man will not work, he shall not eat. A sensible person will gather the crops when it is ready, it is a disgrace to sleep through the time of harvest. A reminder to all of us to keep up our industriousness, increase our skill and knowledge. Kudos to the workers who are labouring on to keep our world running. The doctors, nurses, medical officers, food workers, grab food drivers, police and government policy makers. But do be mindful of mother earth, or we have another problem to add to our woes.

It is a global emergency that has already killed on a mass scale and threatens to send millions more to early graves. As its effects spread, it could destabilise entire economies and overwhelm poorer countries lacking resources and infrastructure. But this is the climate crisis, not the coronavirus. Governments are not assembling emergency national plans and you’re not getting push notifications transmitted to your phone breathlessly alerting you to dramatic twists and developments from South Korea to Italy.

More than 3,000 people have succumbed to coronavirus yet, according to the World Health Organization, air pollution alone – just one aspect of our central planetary crisis – kills seven million people every year. There have been no Cobra meetings for the climate crisis, no sombre prime ministerial statements detailing the emergency action being taken to reassure the public. In time, we’ll overcome any coronavirus pandemic. With the climate crisis, we are already out of time, and are now left mitigating the inevitably disastrous consequences hurtling towards us.

Rest of the story here.