Here in the UK, we are enduring the second week of self-isolation (aka lockdown). I struggle with anxiety and depression even in normal life and this pandemic has just made it so much worse. I really miss my freedom of movement and being able to rely on having sufficient food to live.
I’m sure when things do regain some semblance of normality, we’ll be encouraged to give the economy a boost by spending like there’s no tomorrow – such is the Capitalist way. However, I hope beyond hope, that we don’t return to our consumerist society. I hope beyond hope that we see this experience as a taster of what lies ahead of us if we don’t take the climate crisis seriously.
I’m as guilty of that as anyone. These last few weeks have revealed to me that I’ve been fiddling at the edges. I was treating the climate crisis as something theoretical rather than the reality it is. The climate is in crisis right now. So I need to be making those hard choices right now not sometime or other in the future maybe.
But one person doing that is totally insignificant. So I need to be joining others (Fridays For Future, Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, etc) in putting pressure on our governments to take whatever measures are necessary – whatever hardships are necessary.
We simply have to make our governments fulfill their obligation to look after us. If we don’t, then what future do we have? What future do they have? For the sake of everybody, the status quo cannot persist.
