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Home » Diets that Work » Home alone: coronavirus isolation and ecology – The Ecologist

The UK government's guidelines on how individuals should respond to the coronavirus pandemic has changed sharply over the past week - from one symptomatic member of a household self-isolating for seven days, to whole families self-isolating for fourteendays, tothe wholesale closure of pubs, cafes and offices and the 'shielding' of at-risk groups:those with heart disease, diabetes, lung disease and compromisedimmune systems are being asked tostay home for twelveweeks.

We now have an almost complete lockdown.People need to work from home wherepossible and tostop non-essential contact with others, but the repercussions of this for vulnerable peopleliving alone are as daunting as the threat of the coronavirus itself.The reality is that many of these people maybe at home alone, isolated and without any human contact.

This plan hinges upon isolating vulnerable individuals for three months while proposingthat the collective action of people working from home while avoiding pubs and restaurants willflatten the curve. With one group ofpeople supposedly out of harm's way, another group can - in time -move back into public life tostimulate theeconomy: everyone wins, at least hypothetically.

Nature

Meanwhile, the internet abounds with articles about theearth being the beneficiaryof the coronavirus lockdowns in China and Italy. But there has been littlereflection on the ethics of advocatingsocial isolation as a form of environmental repair.

CNN points out one of the unexpected results of the lockdown in Chinas Hubei province is ecological healing: the average number of "goodquality airdays" increased21.5 percentin February,

Many more media outlets have run similar pieces on the unintended profit of thecoronavirus, on the way thatthis virus is curbing carbon emissions, and even on whatclimate changecan teach us in fighting COVID-19. But are these truisms reason to push for social isolation as the future model for greener practices by both individuals and businesses?

We must ask ourselves if the human cost of undoing ecological damage need come in the form of Wuhan-styleconfinementor even in the lighter version that we see under Johnsons leadership, which asks that the elderly and infirm pay the price of this virus throughisolation? Are we not missing the forest for the trees?

Distancing

Institutions are laying the groundwork for telecommuting - working from home - at pace, having posed barriers to these 'reasonable adjustments' for disabled people and pregnant people for decades.AsLaura Elliottrecently noted, Apparently, accessibility really does matter, but only when its isnt 'just'disabled people asking for it."

TheEquality Act 2010notes that these reasonable adjustmentsnecessitate changes to policies, working practices, physical spaces, and the provision ofspecific equipment andsupport.

As more people isolate, communities arebecomingincreasingly mindful of the fear that elderly feelin leaving their homes to go shopping. As a result, there a movement isemerging that is expanding the social distancing model to incorporate the safe-keeping and health of the elderly and at risk groups. These acts of solidarity are organised underthe banner of mutual aid,where neighbours shop for the elderly and at risk members of their community.

Mutual aid demonstrates that physical distancing need not come at the cost of a sense of community.

Behaviours

It is indisputable that many of our everyday habits in the Global Northhave contributed to climate change, weare at odds overhow best to make change and facilitate healing without compromising on community. The question is the degree to which moderating individual behaviourswill effect change; how do we balanceindividual and socialneeds; what shape might more systemic change take?

Installingsmart metersin your home orsolar security camerasoutside it might help with your ecological footprint, but nothing will approximate the kind of improvements thatparts of Chinasaw last month. Certainly, solar and wind power are part of the equation, but our habits must also change in tandem with green technology. In short, we must make more drastic changes to how we can curb climate change without reverting to the pandemic model of green evolution.

While this novel coronavirus is forcing us into behaviours that are having a positive knock-on effect to the environment, we must be sceptical about the suggestion that we can only reducecarbon emissions by restricting movement.We must be even more wary of the suggestion that the elderly and other at-risk individuals make such sacrifices as if their lives and freedomsare dispensable for the greater good.

As a freelance writer who often works for weeks without having much social contact outside my family, I am acutely aware of the importance of social connection.Yet, as I am in the midst of my fourth week of quarantine, I have had much time to reflect upon the pain of social isolation - particularly as amother,having experienceda similar sort of isolation while parenting and cut off from social interaction.

This quarantine, however, takes things further, especially when coupled with the anxiety that many are experiencing as they worry about their families,communities and the economic impacts of quarantine.

Change

If Covid-19 is evidencing the ecological benefits of staying at home, we need to analyse what we can do better toachievethe same result without isolating ourselves. We also need to think about what and who is at stake here and how that drives change:it was only when the stock markets in Milan, New York and London started to crash that companies began toaccommodate widespreadtelecommuting.

It iscertainly not -as Drew Arellano recently suggested - thathumans are the virus and COVIDs the cure. This is a cynical and lazy approach to what we are getting wrong.

We might begin with scaling up individual change to the level ofpolicy change.For instance, we mustreimaginewhat and how weeatbyunderstand the links between the emergence of zoonosis due toagricultural intensification and environmental change,and the negative Global Health Impacts (GHIs) of diets that include animal products. We need to take widespreadtelecommuting as a prompt for reimagining work, and the piecemeal renationalisation ofpublic transport as a prompt for reimagining travel.

In the end, Covid-19 is giving us much time in the coming weeksand possibly monthsto rethink everything about how we behave in the world. Lets not pretend that we can or want to live without each other.

Instead we need to face the obstacles that keepus from creating a greener and happier future head-on,for that day when we can eventually step outside and breath a collective breath fresh air.

This Author

Dr Julian Vigo is an independent scholar and filmmaker who specialises in anthropology, technology, and political philosophy. Her latest book isEarthquake in Haiti: The Pornography of Poverty and the Politics of Development(2015).She is a contributor toForbes,Quillette,TruthDig,Dissident Voice,Black Agenda Report,The Morning StarandThe Ecologist.

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Home alone: coronavirus isolation and ecology - The Ecologist

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Home » Diets that Work » Home alone: coronavirus isolation and ecology – The Ecologist