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No, you can’t have your old life back
It would be madness to think people can rewind the clock to the pre-COVID days. Not when this marvelous opportunity has presented itself in all its shining, virtuous glory.
Never let a crisis go to waste, as the man said. Let’s check in with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization, speaking to the WHO about the current situation. Will we conquer COVID? Yes, but don’t think a vaccine, coupled with the inevitable burn-out of the virus, means we can return to the life we led before some people somewhere did something.
At the same time, we will not – we cannot – go back to the way things were.
Throughout history, outbreaks and pandemics have changed economies and societies. This one will be no different.
In particular, the pandemic has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to climate change.
He’s not a medical doctor, which is a good thing. Imagine your doc giving you a bad diagnosis and saying that this news has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to your disease. It’s gassy gobbledegook, but in your case it’s intended to make everyone nod: things must be done. What? You know, the things. Any of them. All of them.
The pandemic has given us a glimpse of our world as it could be: cleaner skies and rivers.
It’s remarkable what you can do when you choke economies, forbid personal movement, and infect old people in nursing homes who apparently vomited tons of plastic into rivers and spewed carbon monoxide from their withered, toothless mouths.
Building back better means building back greener.
In May, WHO published our “Manifesto for a Healthy and Green Recovery”, with 6 policy prescriptions for protecting nature, investing in water and sanitation, promoting healthy food systems, transitioning to renewable energy, building liveable cities, and stopping subsidies on fossil fuels.
By some odd coincidence, this coincides with the climate-change agenda. No more meat or cars.
In July we added “actionables” for each of these policy prescriptions, providing 81 concrete steps for policy-makers to build a healthier, fairer, greener world.
Eighty-one! And they’re concrete!
Since then, over 40 million health professionals from 90 countries have sent a letter to G20 leaders to call for a Healthy Recovery from COVID-19.
And we have seen many examples of countries acting to protect lives, livelihoods and the planet on which they depend.
Nairobi, Kenya is improving parks, adding urban forests, building more sidewalks and improving drainage.
That’s nice. I am pleased to learn that Kenyans responded to the COVID pandemic with such specific, salutary initiatives, but if you’re thinking of flying to the fracking district of North Dakota, telling everyone that they’re going to lose their jobs, but that they must see this in the context of positive developments like new sidewalks in Nairobi, you’re not going to have a receptive audience.
Hardship is always an opportunity to learn, to grow and to change.
Someone with a remnant shred of dignity and self-respect might consider changing the WHO’s relationship with China, so it doesn’t resemble a dog licking raw blood off a policeman’s boot, but you do you.
COVID-19 is a once-in-a-century health crisis. But it also gives us a once-in-a-century opportunity to shape the world our children will inherit – the word we want.
I thank you.
And I thank you for your honesty. I’d engage with you more on these matters, but I understand you’re late for a panel that praises the smokestacks at the Uyghur crematoria. New technology means the scrubbers ensure a zero-emissions output.
One little detail about the fellow who wants to reorganize the world:
On 18 October 2017, Tedros announced that he had chosen President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to serve as a WHO Goodwill Ambassador to help tackle non-communicable diseases for Africa. He said Zimbabwe was “a country that places universal health coverage and health promotion at the centre of its policies to provide health care to all.”
He was widely criticized, and accused of returning a favor, since Mugabe had backed his WHO appointment. But you have to admit Mugabe did his part for reduced greenhouse gas emissions; starved cows don’t blurt methane, and dead people don’t drive cars.
Published in General
And what about the people living in the Kenyan wilderness without electricity to power lights, refrigerators, cooking stoves, air conditioning, and water pumps, and for whom medical care arrives in a fossil fuel powered Land Rover or a Toyota Land Cruiser that has traversed miles of unpaved roads?
So amazing that a world official could publish such vacuous nonsense.
Well done, though I must admit Tedros teed this one up pretty nicely for person of your wit and talent.
Spouting vacuous nonsense is how one becomes a world official in organizations like the United Nations and its subsidiary groups like the World Health Organization.
Well, to be fair, James, there’s also improved drainage.
No, I’m sorry, but it is you who should have let it be, and declined to post your immediate reaction.
Not that I am going to miss her when she’s gone, but I DO wish that she would hurry up and be gone from public life, so that I could . . . begin not missing her.
Nice description!