Covid-19 and happiness

This year of 2020 will surely be remembered as the year of the unexpected pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people, that generated tens of millions of new poor people and several trillions (millions of millions) of dollars of decline in global gross domestic product, as well as other changes that we cannot yet predict with the same certainty. However, two questions we can already ask are: how correct is it to say that this pandemic was “unexpected” and what can we do to prevent such a pandemic from happening again?

The long-awaited pandemic

This pandemic was certainly not that unexpected. Many had been predicting that something like this could happen. Of course, no one could have predicted with certainty that a new coronavirus would appear in December 2019, or that the contagion would come from a bat, let alone that it would emerge in Wuham. But even without knowing exactly when, or where, or what its precise origin would be, the emergence of a new example of zoonosis, with potentially devastating effects, was not a science fiction story, but a prediction of part of the scientific community.

Zoonosis is defined as the transmission of an infectious disease from an animal to humans, and vice versa. Salmonellosis, influenza, or more recently Ebola and possibly SARS, are examples of such diseases. The emergence of new zoonoses, or the more virulent resurgence of others already known, responds to several factors linked to the way we develop as societies and, very particularly, to our relationship with nature.

A good part of humanity, and fundamentally the majority of its political and economic leaders, seems to be convinced that with technology (and money) it is possible to “humanize” the planet, adapting it to our needs and desires and to the way we have chosen to live. That is why we cut down forests, destroy fertile fields to extract minerals for a few years, advance the agricultural frontier over natural ecosystems, impede the natural flow of watercourses, pollute the land and water with chemicals, pour plastics into the oceans, or emit gases that irreversibly change the Earth’s climate. For centuries, and particularly in recent decades, we have become experts in drastically transforming ecosystems. Let us not unload our blame only on unscrupulous agricultural producers or Amazonian miners, but on actions that involve many more of us. Think, for example, of the growing process of urbanization: only two centuries ago, one out of every 30 people lived in cities; 40 years ago, one out of every three; today, one out of every two. Can we imagine a more devastating effect on the planet than razing forests and fields to install cement, polluting cars and stubborn consumers? Of course, if we only measure the “incremental effect” of a new human intervention, a new neighborhood, a new factory, a new agrochemical, a new oil well, a new dam, we will surely conclude that the impact is “tolerable”. But when are we going to study the cumulative effect of everything we have been doing?

It is not really necessary to analyze such an accumulation of impacts, as nature takes care of it for us and puts it before our eyes. Nature is resilient, but we are provoking changes at a faster rate than its speed to adapt. As a consequence, just as climate change and its catastrophic effects are being impudently exhibited to us, today it is beginning to show us how the profound transformations we have been carrying out have an impact on the balance of ecosystems, and this inevitably ends up affecting human health. Let us see how.

Over millions of years, all ecosystems have developed delicate balances between the different living things that make them up, from fungi and viruses to insects and humans. Different microbes have adapted to live in harmony with other living things that host them, but would be lethal pathogens if they jumped to other animals. This long process of evolution has even allowed “firewalls” to exist between different living beings to avoid these eventual transfers. However, when we begin to irreversibly alter, weaken and fragment ecosystems, all these delicate balances begin to break down. When biodiversity is impoverished and a species becomes extinct, not only do all the individuals of that species disappear, but this influences dozens of other living beings that lived symbiotically with it. Under these circumstances, the probability of viruses, bacteria or fungi jumping to other living beings that do not have an immune system capable of defending themselves can increase tremendously. And, depending on their virulence, the consequences can be dramatic. This is what many scientists have been predicting for some time. For them, covid-19 is not an unexpected phenomenon.

In short, like climate change, the emergence of new pandemics is one of the global consequences, both present and expected in the future, of our presumption of superiority over nature, at the stroke of money, technology and arrogance.

Learnings and exit route from covid-19

Unlike other global economic crises, the one originated by covid-19 does not arise from financial speculation, but is a real crisis that has a direct impact on both supply and demand. The solution, therefore, is not merely the generation of confidence in the agents, but it is imperative to operate on the structural causes that generated this crisis.

The pandemic we are currently experiencing, the end of which is still uncertain, will leave tens of millions of people unemployed and several sectors of activity severely damaged. Restoring employment and economic activity will require substantial investments, both public and private. The natural question to ask ourselves is: for what purpose are we going to invest these funds? Are we going to do it to relaunch the same development model that generated the problem? Are we going to try to generate the same jobs again, in the same activities?

The oil industry is particularly damaged by a brutal drop in demand; are we going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to relaunch this industry to the level it was at a few months ago; or will we take the opportunity to invest these amounts in renewable energies, generating new jobs in this sector? Couldn’t part of the subsidies that many governments are willing to provide to save large companies be directed, for example, to the promotion of electric vehicles, to reduce their costs and generate demand? The automobile industry has been hit hard by the huge decline in vehicle sales; are we going to inject large sums into this industry or will we take the opportunity to promote investments in sustainable micro-mobility and collective transport systems at the urban level? Many people have taken advantage of these months of confinement to incorporate better eating habits; can we not take advantage of this momentum to boost healthier and environmentally sustainable food production? During this forced isolation we did not go to the shopping malls and we reduced our consumption to the essential goods for life; were we able to survive this “effort”; are we unhappier for not having been able to acquire more consumer goods? What we all missed during these months was social contact, family, friends, bonds; can we not take this opportunity to rethink what are the most important things, those that connect us with happiness, with our life goals?

This crisis is a great opportunity to redirect our actions. And hopefully this opportunity is guided by a questioning of the way we want to achieve happiness.

The covid-19 crisis strongly challenges our traditional (and proven destructive) linear economy. Through this model, we take resources from nature; we transform them using polluting and fossil energy-consuming processes; in doing so, we manufacture products with planned obsolescence¹ and that can hardly be repaired; from an increasingly sophisticated marketing (using big data and artificial intelligence), we let ourselves be convinced that our happiness depends on the purchase of such goods; but finally, after a few uses, we end up throwing them away; and all this, of course, demanding larger and larger areas for each of the stages. In short, the usual linear process of production and consumption radically transforms the environment, depletes natural resources and, after an ephemeral consumer happiness, returns them as waste of all kinds to the environment.

In opposition to all this, the circular economy is not an end in itself but symbolizes a far-reaching change in the way we produce and consume, two actions that are in fact closely intertwined. The aim is to produce from the dismantling and recycling of existing goods, minimizing the extraction of new resources from nature; to use renewable energies; to reduce waste production, particularly by avoiding the consumption of goods that cannot be repaired. The last but fundamental link in the circular economy is the transformation of consumption patterns, promoting access to services rather than the purchase of objects. Do we need to own a car that carries only one person and is stopped 22 hours a day, or do we want to have access to a good transportation service that allows us to move around comfortably? Do we need to buy a chainsaw to cut three meters of fence in front of our house, just because it was on sale, that we will use two hours a year and after the third use we will find it broken, or would it be more practical to have access to a rental service? Why keep buying goods that break easily, are little used and are quickly thrown away?

For all these reasons, this crisis of covid19 is a great opportunity to redirect our actions, both collectively and individually. And hopefully this opportunity will be guided by a questioning of the way in which we want to achieve happiness: by increasing the possession of goods, or by strengthening our bonds, whether with our affections or with nature itself?

To contribute in this direction, together with dozens of Latin American men and women with extensive experience in leading innovative processes for a sustainable transition, we have recently created a non-profit association that we have called Ivy,² recalling the search for the “land without evil” of an old Guarani legend.

Ramón Méndez is executive director of Ivy and Alejandro Nario is Ivy’s project manager.

1. Emerging in the 1920s from an agreement of the major manufacturers in the then growing electric light bulb industry, this principle consists of producing goods with a shorter life than possible so that consumers will have to buy them more frequently.