News outlets are reporting a significant decrease in air pollution as a result of stay-at-home orders. These reports began to emerge at the end of March, with indications that Nitrogen (NO2)Dioxide levels have dropped precipitously after a sudden halt in economic activity. In Canada, data from four Canadian cities indicate a similar drop in NO2. More recently, the Guardian reports astonishing scene of crisp blue skies over New Delhi and Bangkok, cities usually choked by smog. On the social media platform WhatsApp, one Indian commenter exclaimed: “It’s positively alpine!”
The NO2 readings registered by satellites are emitted by cars, trucks and power-plants that burn fossil fuels. The modern industrial/consumer economy runs on these fuels, the life-blood of global trade. Yet the COVID-19 outbreak has thrown into relief the underlying cost of current economic development. What we call economic activity, in everyday parlance “making a living”, is actually detrimental to life, toxic to the very cells that compose this mortal frame.
Put aside for the moment, the fact that persistent air-pollution is a systemic threat to health. If the current slow-down is bringing about a breath of clean air that sooths rather than assaults the lungs, I can think of no better impetus to question the supposed goal of all our economic pursuits. The frenzied cycles of production and consumption seem moot if they undermine the very conditions that support life. The trade-off has always existed, but in the steady inertia of industrial progress, the downside has either faded from view, or we have inured ourselves to the detriments of unbridled expansion. Somewhere along the way, we have lost sight of fundamental goods, sold the house in order to procure fine furniture.
The news of improved air quality are not only revealing – they inadvertently demonstrate something else about our predicament. The Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan is famous for the axiom “the medium is the message”. The construction of meaning is inherent in the platform by which meaning is conveyed. The images presented in the news stories feature not only photos of air quality “before” and “after”; photos are relayed through an interface: viewers move a toggle button in the center of the photo, drawing the visual curtain to the left or right. Each movement reveals a more complete picture of the change in air quality. This interactive feature reveals more than what meets the eye. When I swipe the cursor left and right, I am shifting between two realities, two possible worlds that present themselves before. The cursor stands for choice: What kind of world do we want to live in?
Even as I write, I hear chicadees and purples finches chirping outside my window. Instead of the gushing drone of traffic, only the occasional car cruises by. With the abatement of noise also comes an easing of the mind. This is not a blithe indifference to tragedy of the pandemic, nor a glib discount of the lives lost to contagion. I am not deaf to suffering in the rush to find the silver lining. I am merely pointing out something that we have become blind to, this intolerable malaise which we have learned to tolerate. The pandemic disrupts the given norms, and in doing so, shows us something that we do not otherwise see. Charles Eisenstein writes:
Covid-19 is like a rehab intervention that breaks the addictive hold of normality. To interrupt a habit is to make it visible; it is to turn it from a compulsion to a choice.
The toggle button that swipes left and right, therefore, is a portal into the future. Our future. How shall we live from now on and what kind of world do we want to live in? As the pandemic takes its course, many people are asking these questions. French Philosopher Bruno Latour has presented the following questions to help us reflect on the present situation. His questions help to steer us toward a more intentional way of life rather than a blind passivity to pervasive norms. I leave his questions here for the reader to ponder.
Answer the following questions first individually and then if possible with others:
Question 1: What are the activities now suspended that you would like to see not resumed?
Question 2: Describe why you think this activity is harmful/ superfluous/ dangerous/inconsistent and how its disappearance/suspension/substitution would make the activities you favor easier/ more consistent. (Make a separate paragraph for each of the activities listed in question 1).
Question 3: What measures do you recommend to ensure that the workers/employees/agents/entrepreneurs who will no longer be able to continue in the activities you are removing are helped in their transition toward other activities.
Question 4: Which of the now suspended activities would you like to develop/resume or even create from scratch?
Question 5: Describe why this activity seems positive to you and how it makes it easier/ more harmonious/ consistent with other activities that you favor and helps to combat those that you consider unfavorable. (Make a separate paragraph for each of the activities listed in question 4).
Question 6: What measures do you recommend to help workers/ employees/ agents/ entrepreneurs acquire the capacities/ means/ income/ instruments to take over/ develop/ create this favored activity.
Now, find a way to compare your descriptions with those of other participants. Compiling and then superimposing the answers should gradually produce a landscape made of lines of conflict, alliances, controversy and opposition. This terrain may provide a concrete opportunity for creating the forms of political expression these activities require.
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