what touches one affects us all –
the seas that wash us round about,
the clouds that cover us,
the rains that fall....
Our world is one world,
just like a ship that bears us all –
where fear and greed make many holes,
but where our hearts can hear
a different call.”
Words of Cecily Taylor from one of our most loved hymns.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us just how true it is that our world is one world. Facilitated by global air travel, since it first appeared in Wuhan in China in December 2019, the disease has spread to over 180 countries and 200 territories, with over 2 million confirmed cases worldwide. I have a natural inclination to look for the positives in a situation. There is immense suffering as a result of this disease – there are deaths, job losses, food shortages, poverty, mental health consequences. I believe we are also being given the opportunity to make positive changes. Our interconnection and interdependence have enabled the disease to spread far and wide in a short space of time, but they have also enabled communities to respond to the crisis with compassion and care for each other, and they are key to building a healthy future for our world.
Last week, the key note speech at the UK Unitarians online gathering, Being Together, was given by writer and activist Alastair McIntosh. He identified our excessive consumption as a major component in the adverse effect that humans have on our environment. As a result of lockdown measures, many of us have had to make substantial changes to the way we live. Most of us are travelling less and consuming less. Food waste has reduced and air quality has improved.
Carbon emissions have dropped dramatically with the reduction of industrial activity and engine-driven transport. Compared with this time last year, levels of pollution in New York have reduced by nearly 50%. The proportion of days with “good quality air” was up 11.4% compared with the same time last year in 337 cities across China. In Europe, satellite images show nitrogen dioxide emissions fading away over Italy, Spain and the UK.
Of course, when restrictions are lifted, and industrial activity and air travel resume, emissions will rise, but I do hold out hope that we will not just go back to the way things were. Social science research shows that behavioural changes that are imposed upon us by external interventions can turn into lasting habits.
A 2018 study at Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland found that when people were unable to drive and given free e-bike access instead, they drove much less when they eventually got their car back. A study in 2001 led by at Kyoto University in Japan found that when a motorway closed, forcing drivers to use public transport, the same thing happened – when the road reopened, people who had formerly been committed drivers travelled by public transport more frequently.
As a species, adaptability has been key to our evolutionary success. We have had to adapt quickly and extensively to our new circumstances. Some climate scientists are heartened by the ways communities have pulled together to look out for each other – we have taken collective action at local, national and international levels in response to this health crisis – so surely we should be able to take substantive collective action in response to climate change?
Over the next few days, I invite you to consider what recent changes to the way you live would you like to continue in the future?
The first thing that comes to mind for me is connection. This crisis has brought home to me just how precious are my connections - to friends, to family, to the Unitarian community, to the wider human community, to the rest of nature.
For me, one of the gifts of lockdown has been being able to really be present to the great greening of springtime, especially in the last week or so, when the leaves have all unfurled on the trees and the blossom has exploded in a riot of colour. I have realised that most years I am too busy scurrying about to see much further than the end of my nose. As a result of the reduction in the level of noise from machinery and traffic, birdsong is much clearer. A pair of nuthatches have taken up residence in a tree on the street opposite our house, something that has not happened in the 8 years we have lived there. This week has seen a multitude of birds, bees and butterflies visiting our garden. In future years things will be different and probably noisier again, but I would like to continue being present, appreciating being part of nature, taking notice of the sights and sounds of the seasons.
Other changes I have had to make include shopping within a very small local geographic area. As a result of this, I am getting to know the owners of my local health food store and zero waste shop, and I am supporting local businesses. This change in my consumption habits has led me to ask myself, what is enough? Am I doing enough? Am I consuming too much? I am considering all of my personal consumption, not just food, but other purchases, and less tangible things, but things that are just as influential to our well-being, such as news and social media. A word we are hearing a lot is “essential”. We are told only to leave our homes for essential purposes. Only essential businesses are to remain open. So I ask myself, what is essential for me?
A lesson for me in all this is that we do a lot of unnecessary things.
“Times are urgent, let us slow down,” says the activist Bayo Akomolafe.
Let us slow down and ask ourselves,
What is enough?
What is essential for the well-being of the Earth?
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