Those of you who will have heard my sermons will probably recognise that two of the most important theological principles for me are that 1) we must use our God given talents to the very best of our ability ( Matthew 25: 14-30), and 2) we must look after this planet with all its animal and plant life to the very best of our abilities (Genesis 1 and 2).
In the present coronavirus crisis, we have two problems. First, how do we plan to leave the current lockdown situation and secondly what sort of world are we going to achieve when finally, the virus is dealt with or contained, be it by vaccine or therapeutic control. In this article I will examine these two problems in the light of the two principles set out above.
To solve the first problem, we require the talents of our best epidemiologists, economists and politicians, because there is no way the solution can be found by appeal to any one discipline. The objective needs to be stated – we need to minimise the loss of life owing to the virus by ensuring that its spread is kept under control and that the health services are not overwhelmed. Obviously, to maintain the lockout would be the best solution to meet this single objective. However, with the lockdown, there are many other problems – wrecked economy leading to other health problems including possibly an unquantifiable number deaths resulting from for example mental/nervous difficulties, domestic abuse, and lack of treatment for other illnesses when the health service is fully occupied treating those suffering from the virus.
It is possible to quantify the likely deaths from the virus under a number of different scenarios – for which we can take an average of the forecasts of the epidemiologists. However, it is not possible to quantify the deaths resulting from other causes – medical practitioners, epidemiologists, psychologists will all have opinions because in the end the decision will be made on the basis of balance or trade off. As an example of this balance, an article in The Times highlighted that of deaths on the road of which there are about 1,700 a year. To avoid these totally we could ban all motor vehicles which would be absurd. Instead we try to make the roads as safe as possible by road planning and design, by vehicle design and by driver instruction and rules of the road. All this is achieved by road designers and engineers using their talents to achieve the best balance between making the situation as safe as possible commensurate with an acceptable level of injury and loss of life. (This might seem harsh, but many government policies are determined by cost-benefit analysis in which human lives are ascribed a monetary value.) The same process must now be followed by our politicians using their talent to judge the correct point of balance between total freedom and a certain amount of constraint. I will leave the reader to judge whether or not we have a government with the required level of talent to make this judgement. But what I written so far about the complexity and uncertainties involved will explain why we have different rules coming from the different countries of the UK and why the rules for England have been expressed inconsistently and open to interpretation. Perhaps a greater talent is required of those drafting the documents – maybe to just to emphasise the most important rules and leave the rest to individual judgement and common sense. Hopefully, as time unfolds the correct balance will become established.
I will now look further ahead and consider some of the daunting decisions that will have to be made with regard to the future of the planet and global warming. We have seen during this period of global shutdown with just a minimum of human activity to maintain human life for a period of a few weeks, that pollution has become much reduced and whilst I haven’t seen any figures carbon dioxide emission must have become much reduced. In terms of wildlife, the insect population has burgeoned with the consequent ease of life for birds and animals further up the food chain. And, of course, the lack of pollution is so much better for our own health.
Clearly we cannot continue in this state of inactivity, but I think the question we need to be asking is: should we take advantage of this enforced shut-down to re-examine that which is essential for our human needs; by essential I mean not just food and shelter but also the higher needs identified by the psychologist Maslow, for example love and esteem in addition to the physiological needs?
In the academic world I see so many huge conferences sometimes attended by as many as a thousand delegates from all around the world and I wonder was that conference really necessary. Eventually the results coming out of laboratories will have to be disseminated by peer reviewed papers, perhaps following small discussion groups, not these great meetings which perhaps provide ego trips for the main speakers. I suspect that in the business world that much the same unnecessary travel to big meetings or conferences occur. I am not suggesting that they should never occur, but I do think we could be asking the question – is this conference/meeting essential?
The other large area of travel and pollution which occurs is travel for pleasure – either a relaxing holiday or a cultural exchange. Both of these activities are essential to the meeting of the human need for variety, broadening of the mind or indeed just for rest.
These are just two examples of the analysis that we, as talented, human beings, need to examine to see whether or not there is scope for reducing our human footprint on the world. Unfortunately, I read that China is already getting ‘back to normal’ with the consequent increase in pollution that results from the coal fired power stations, but I do think that as Christians we should be encouraging a broader analysis of ‘where we go from here.’
James Lovelock pointed out when he introduced his concept of Gaia that the world is perfectly capable of sorting itself out without human intervention – the only problem from our point of view is that Gaia does not prioritise human beings. I repeat that the largest problem facing the world today is global warming and that current coronaviral problem does provide us with an opportunity albeit unwanted, to re-examine our way of life to achieve a step towards slowing that warming.
Dr David Greenwood d.greenwood@uwtsd.ac.uk
May 2020
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