Category: Earth & climate

Articles focusing on the current and future state of our planet and its climate. We explore the causes and consequences of anthropogenic climate change.

Corona and the Climate: The Opportunity to Write a New Story! 

As I am heading into the fifth week of quarantine, I am sitting down to complete this mini-series on the Corona crisis with a look into the future.  

Our current narrative is broken 

Over the last few weeks, I have been grappling with the enormity of the pandemic and its effect on our modern society. In the midst of a crisis, I find it challenging to take a helicopter view and put things in perspective. Newspapers seem to have decided already though, telling me that this is a historical moment: We are leaving the pre-Corona era behind and enter the post-Corona era. During the first weeks of the lockdown, I could not help wondering if it was all going to be that significant. Once we find a vaccine, won’t we return to ‘business as usual’ rather quickly?  

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Corona and the Climate: a Tale of two Global Crises

In my last article, I kicked off this mini-series on the relationship between the Corona pandemic and the fight against climate change. Today, I am taking a closer look at the differences and parallels between these two global crises.

A time lag of ten days or ten years

As the YouTube channel Our Changing Climate wittingly points out, one of the big differences between climate change and the current pandemic is their relation to time. When comparing cause and effect, we observe a delay of about five to ten days between getting infected with the new Corona virus and disease symptoms to emerge; this is the incubation period. Give it another three weeks and most human immune systems have fought it off .

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Corona and the Climate: don’t be delusional

Being home alone in self-isolation since mid-March, several of you have turned to me asking what I think about the relationship between the global COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis. Watching a transformation of global proportions enfold in front of my eyes is interesting, frightening, and sometimes inspiring at the same time. No longer neglecting my itching fingers, I am taking place behind my computer and starting a small series of articles about the current events and their relation to the climate.

Before getting into the complicated matters of politics and economics, I want to address the links and articles that some of you have been sharing with me over the last few weeks. Hopeful articles, often, about the signs of nature recovering in Chinese and Italian cities as a positive side-effect of the lockdowns enforced to keep the Corona virus at bay. I must admit these articles have slightly irritated me at best and rendered me hopeless at worst (no offense to everyone who sent them, I appreciate you are thinking about me ?). Let me explain.

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Encounter with the Rebellion

It is Friday evening and I am on the way home. It is one of these days where the sky clears up just before sunset to make way for a beautiful play of colours. The city is buzzing with life, the Bruxellois are enjoying the start of the weekend outside. The chatter and laughing mixes with the sounds of music and clanking beer glasses.

The lively city streets are in stark contrast with the thoughts that are swirling through my head. I just attended a talk by Roger Hallam, one of the founders of the Extinction Rebellion movement. Given the waves they’ve made in recent months, there is a good chance you heard of them before. But for the uninitiated, let me quickly introduce them before heading into the beef – or tofu for the vegans – of this blog post.

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The Planetary Accounting Dilemma

Ever since I published my blog post ‘System Change not Climate Change’, I have felt slightly unsatisfied. Sure, I dare say my analysis of the failures of the current economic system was pretty accurate. But I fell short on the solution side of the story. After 21 paragraphs on what is wrong with free market capitalism, I did not get farther than 2 paragraphs on a possible way out. Because I didn’t see one.

The absence of a feasible alternative at hand should not withhold me – or anyone else – from criticising the shortcomings of society. But truth be told, this blog is all about finding a sensible answer to the climate challenge and I would very much like to succeed at that.

Therefore, I am revisiting my conclusion of the article I – somewhat hesitantly – threw at the world nearly three months ago. Finding my way in the web of interdependencies between science, economics, politics, and human psychology is by no means an easy task. But we are not here for a PhD defence, as a close friend pointed out recently. So, we’ll take it in manageable bites. Paso a paso, as my Spanish teacher used to tell me when I lived in Barcelona.

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System Change not Climate Change – my protest sign explained

Sunday the 27th of January, 11 am. I am preparing myself to leave the house, putting on an extra sweater before I get into my warmest winter jacket. I am about to navigate myself through the rainy streets to the North Station of Brussels, where soon another climate protest will start to demand action from the Belgian governments. It’s the second march this week, the 5th in the last two months. The last thing I pick up before I head off is my protest sign. It reads: ‘System Change not Climate Change’.

Rained out but full of energy after walking with more than 70 000 through the streets of Brussels to demand system change over climate change (own photo)

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