Monday, March 23, 2020

Coronavirus, Climate Change and Ecclesiasticus





Jerry Regovoy, born in 1930, was an American songwriter and record producer.  He wrote “Piece of My Heart”, associated with Janis Joplin, but he’s probably better known for “Time Is on My Side”, made famous by The Rolling Stones in 1964.  Jerry died in 2011 following a stroke. I like the way Mick Jagger did that song--his characteristic swagger, his surety that things would come his way if he just waited. 



Like everyone else, I’m preoccupied with the 2019-nCoV pandemic. This latest version of a class of viruses known as coronaviruses, which I’m going to call covid-19, seems to be highly contagious, and it’s nasty in other ways.  Except for the priapic young men and aphroditic sex objects on Florida’s beaches, we’re avoiding close social contacts and taking other precautionary measures. It’s no fun, really.  I’m not a fearful person, but I accept the prevailing medical advice: the temporal development of this infection is such that we are in for a rough period. The federal government seems to be finally beginning to do what it must to slow the spread of the infection, hoping to avoid a disastrous run on medical capacities, of both people and stuff. But the hourly totals of the infected tell a grim tale. Time is not on our side, Mick. 



The enormous attention given to this pandemic has convinced everyone that the sooner we act, the greater our chances for mitigation. This is true for individuals, organizations and governments alike. Everyone needs to buy-in.  The rate at which essential domestic products  evaporate from grocery store shelves is stark evidence that the media have the capacity to get peoples’ attention and stimulate action. Individuals are more likely to act if they feel they can do something concrete that makes a difference, especially when it affects them personally. It’s hard, though, when it means you should do next to nothing.



The almost universal preoccupation with the pandemic can't be ascribed merely to the heavy media coverage. Pandemics are spooky, and rightly so.  You just don’t see it coming. A tiny number of infectious virus units manage to infect one luckless person in a population. The virus begins with a stealth approach, multiplying slowly at first, not making a fuss. Then, at a certain point in its exponential growth in the victim, the infection suddenly announces itself with a roar and spreads at a mad rate. Meantime, the infected person is unwittingly distributing copies of the virus to the outside world, like mail addressed to “whomever”.  A lot of biology is going on and we don’t see or feel it.  If only we could detect an infection early and take steps to curtail the spread--tests, anyone?  

For most of us, right now it’s a matter of self-protection, anything from obsessive hand-washing to social distancing, to prevent contact with the virus,    Individuals take steps in their self-interest, but in taking them cooperatively we can hope to slow the virus’s spread, and maybe also reduce the total number infected. Time is not on our side, either as individuals or as a community, so we do what we can, now.

It’s not unreasonable to be fearful of what might be in store for the spread of covid-19, or for the mortalities it will produce.  It seems still early to make more than a rough guess at how virulent this nemesis will prove to be. Different populations will exhibit differing mortality rates, depending on age distribution, general state of health, availability of medical care and so on.  However, the preliminary estimates based on moralities in nations that have been hard hit are ominously high.  Wikipedia has a table showing the numbers of cases and deaths worldwide, nation by nation.  The total number of confirmed cases across all nations as of March 21, 2020, is 282,000, resulting in about 12,000 deaths.  That works out to a mortality rate of about 0.04, a truly horrible number.  The vast majority of those deaths have occurred in China, Italy and Iran, in that order. 

To put those numbers into perspective, consider the famous Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.  With the exception of the Black Plague in the 14th century and beyond, it was the most deadly infestation in human history. It infected 500 million and killed an estimated 17 to 50 million people worldwide.  If we take the lowest estimate of deaths, that amounts to an overall 0.035 mortality rate. Is it possible that we now face something with that power to kill?  We can see from the numbers that we’re in the very early stages of the current pandemic; we can hope that mortality rates will decline as nations come to grips with containment measures such as social distancing.  On the other hand, when covid-19 makes its way into highly populated population centers, many of them with only the most basic and limited medical facilities--well, it will not be pretty. In 1918 the world population was about 1.8 billion; today we’re about 7.7  billion.

I’ve been writing this blog for the past couple of years and attempting in various other ways to raise awareness of the dangers posed by climate change. Scientists with many different special skills, working with different tools and models, have been steadily building a model of the global climate system. The myriad of studies, coming from all parts of Earth’s environment: land surface, atmosphere and the ocean, all point to a global warming in full swing and growing faster with each passing year. Nearly all scientific experts are confident that the changes to come will cause the extinction of many of the planet’s species and lead to the widespread suffering of humans. The science has grown increasingly clear and more precise over time. And yet, societal responses have been slow, not even close to matching the urgency we should be feeling. 

Why is it that we can really get going on an urgent crisis such as the covid-19 pandemic and at the same time be slow to react to the threats of climate change?  The answer lies in our evolutionary heritage, which has endowed us with a capacity to respond to immediate threats to ourselves or the communities in which we live. The spectacle of heavily clad medical workers moving infected patients into special isolation units, hourly updates on those infected or dead, the need for self-isolation, governmental mandates to close down commerce, and the endless drum of media coverage are enough to provoke us into action to ward off an invisible viral infection that can kill within a few weeks of infection. In contrast, our attention is drawn to climate change via stories about faraway places: floods in Nebraska, drought in Ethiopia, a hurricane of unprecedented fury hitting Japan.  The climate crisis announces itself in bits and pieces, in slowly deteriorating weather conditions in California, drought on the Australian subcontinent, in the loss of Solomon Island nations to sea-level rise.  By comparison with a viral pandemic, climate change is slow. As Lise Van Susteren wrote recently, “The climate crisis is much more psychologically demanding. ... It requires compassion to imagine what is going to be down the road and to drive ourselves to take action now for the benefits that we may not personally receive.”

But focusing on the notion that humans are not programmed to think long-term misses the most important causes of our responses as a nation to the covid-19 pandemic and global warming: the growth of global neoliberalism, an economic model that aims to pare away unwanted governmental oversight and regulation to make way for an unfettered capitalism operating largely free of governmental control. Many economists have been warning over the past few decades about the rise of neoliberalism. I recall reading a book by Dan Shiller, Digital Capitalism, copyright 2000, in which the development of global networks is linked to neoliberalism.  Shiller’s warnings and those of many of the world’s most eminent economists, have not been heeded. It can fairly be said that
Gordon Gekko’s motto, “Greed is Good” has been allowed to make a home in the hearts of the big corporations and banks.  The Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that to cure what ails us, “we need reform at both the national and global levels. The US, for example, clearly needs a new social contract that is capable of fostering solidarity among all demographic groups and across generations. The new social contract, in turn, will require a larger and revised economic role for government. We need less corporate welfare and more progressive taxation with which to fund social policies for those in need and investments in the welfare of all. Most important, we must rewrite the basic rules of the economy to reverse the toxic legacy of neoliberalism – which made its own revisions to the rules during its long reign of error.  Looking back, there is no denying that the neoliberal era increased inequality, accelerated many forms of environmental destruction – not least climate change – polarized electorates, and sowed the seeds for pervasive discontent. ….The obsession with quarterly earnings and executive compensation led corporations to direct their energy toward creating more unemployment and holding down wages for unskilled workers.”

Because capitalism works on the notion of maximizing profits, it’s about driving down costs.  The American and global economies undergo periodic crises arising from greedy reaching that goes astray for any number of reasons.  Here’s Stiglitz again: “Indeed, research in behavioral economics has shown that bankers, particularly traders and investment bankers, tend to be less honest than their colleagues in less competitive areas of finance; they become even less honest when they are primed to think of themselves as bankers. Behavioral research has also identified why economies with extreme levels of inequality have deficient social solidarity.” 

Because we have been operating in an economic system grounded in the philosophy of maximizing profits and minimizing contributions to the common good, we find ourselves with a government unprepared for the covid-19 emergency we face.  The Trump administration, following the edicts of greedy capitalism, has systematically stripped the agencies in the executive branch of many offices and programs, such as the White House National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense.  There’s been no one there to point out our vulnerability to a pandemic, nor were any of the many unqualified political appointees put in charge of major agencies inclined to think in those terms. The president often replies to questions about how his domain is run with the claim that, “I don’t know anything about that”.  Sadly, it usually seems to be true.

The twin challenges of the viral pandemic and impending climate change call for a time of truth-telling. We will be hearing and reading a lot of it from sources that have been pretty quiet heretofore. Here’s a recent example from Peter Georgescu, writing in  Forbes magazine:

“Economically, we are not one nation. And this pandemic is screaming at us to recognize this truth and act accordingly. If we are willfully denying or flat out ignoring the existential problem of inequality we now face, how are we going to demand the actions necessary to preserve our democracy and any sense of justice?”

Amen.  At the moment all is focused on how the viral pandemic has highlighted the cracks in our social structure.  The focus on short-term profits and marginalization of the public good, will continue to be stumbling blocks as we confront climate change. As it bears down on us in the decades to come, who will suffer the most?  

To end on the question of how we use our time in the days ahead, here are a few lines from a spiritual, Ain’t Got Time to Die,  by the African-American choir director and composer, Hall Johnson:

                Aint got time

                Cause when Im healin de sick

                When Im healin de sick

                When Im healin de sick

                Cause it takes all o ma time

                All o ma time

           

            Negro Spiritual Song Lyrics for Ain't Got Time To Die-Hall Johnson

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