(Three-minute read) We spend more on ice cream than ensuring that the technologies we develop don’t destroy us. Now that we are all living through a global pandemic we need a much wider frame of reference for what is right and what is wrong. It shows to some extent that we can overcome the sense of “other,” and acknowledge that events in one part of the world can affect us all. The jury is out on whether COVID-19 will prompt the world to choose the route of national isolation or global solidarity, but a growing understanding that we are inherently connected to people in vastly different geographies and circumstances can help build momentum for strong climate action. Everyday problems are everyday problems while hypothetical future ones can be left for tomorrow. If we continue to ignore the threat represented by advancing technologies such as Artificial intelligence, Bioengineering, Overdependence on the internet, Algorithms the problems that affect everyone are consequently owned by no one in particular. We are now with a Pandemic witnessing our civil freedoms becoming rules by big data. We have realized for a long time that we can destroy not only ourselves in a flash with nuclear war (we still have over 4000 nuclear warheads ) while we are only beginning to realize that this is not the only threatening thing to the survival of our species. Now might well be the time to think about what can be done to avoid a future cataclysm, a critical moment in our history, or leave ourselves as a civilization in the balance. If we make the right decisions perhaps we will see a future and not end up like the dodo or the dinosaurs. On the one hand, this is a big ask as we have a little moral grasp of how our actions may affect the thousands of generations that could -or alternatively, might not -come after us. Sooner or later all questions of existential risk comes down to a global understanding and agreement that climate change similarly poses a major threat to human lives and urgently requires a comprehensive response. Unfortunately, we still have to learn that it is common bonds that are greater than our differences and we will not able to have this understanding while our economic systems are driven by profit and our political systems remain almost entirely national or federal. The belief that COVID-19 can solve our separation and act as one is magical thinking in its purest form. However individual countries can not afford to turn their backs on the world like the USA, at last not for long. The slogan that we are all in this together will ultimately require a kind of unity if we are to avoid greater afflictions in the future. Just because our survival isn’t on the line with COVID-19 Climate change is shaping up to be a global calamity of unprecedented scale.  As we are seeing with this pandemic global problems do not always have global solutions BUT REST ASSURED CLIMATE CHANGE WILL AND IS ALREADY DEMANDING A GLOBAL SOLUTION.  As the world recovers from COVID-19, we must not let short-term fixes prevent us from addressing longer-term risks like climate change.

• The response to the pandemic illustrates five actions we can take to address the global climate change crisis.
• These include making people the priority, listening to global perspectives, and trusting experts.

What happens over the coming months could go one of two ways. There is a risk that as the immediate crisis wanes and its economic consequences become clearer, we cast aside longer-term aspirations in pursuit of short-term easy fixes, many of which would have adverse environmental consequences. These include rolling back environmental standards, stimulating the economy by subsidizing fossil-fuel-heavy industries, and focusing on making more things, rather than using them better. With scientists warning, we have 10 years left to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, if the pandemic teaches us to acknowledge our vulnerability it could offer an opportunity to fix the climate crisis before it’s too late. We need to harness the present wave of compassion and proactivity to protect vulnerable people in all contexts, including those most exposed to climate impacts. Much remains uncertain about what the world will look like when we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the fundamental societal changes we are witnessing may well offer us a final chance to avoid a climate catastrophe. When we come out of this Pandemic switching to green energy with a green economy is one of the single biggest things you can do to cut your carbon emissions and to regenerate our common values with a future worth living as there is no future in carrying on without planet. All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.