What If Coronavirus is a Dress Rehearsal for Something Way More Sinister?

Some thing’s been nagging me for a while. Kind of an itch really. And it’s been growing since before the Covid-19 nightmare. Like deja vue in reverse. That what we’re living through now is just a dress rehearsal for something much bigger. Maybe we’re experiencing the appetiser. You know, the precursor to a scintillating, jaw dropping main course – a goddamned Big Mac and fries!

What if Coronavirus is just the first step to something way more sinister? What if it’s like an early skirmish in a much deadlier war. And what if that war’s lurking just around the corner. What if Donald Trump was right and all the thousands of scientists were wrong about climate change but not in the way that we might expect. What if their predictions for climate catastrophe are actually too cautious.

What if we only have a few more years before we get hit by another global catastrophy – you know like another deadly virus or massive droughts, endless rainstorms, flooding, coastal collapse, or a combination of the above leading to huge population migrations, starvation and a devastating world war.

What if the world’s wildlife get so pissed off that they finally turn on us – lions and tigers roaming the streets of New York or London randomly attacking people. Snakes in our showers, tarantulas up our pj’s. What if aliens drop in to nuke us because they agree with the wildlife and have had it with watching us from afar while we fumble with the planet like a bunch of 3 year olds. Or what if, way, way scarier than any of the above, what if Donald Trump wins the next US election and we get another four years of his friggin twitter account.

ENOUGH!! ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT!! ENOUGH I SAY!!

What if we DO SOMETHING. What if we stand up and fight back. What if I didn’t have to write this domesday crap of a climate nightmare that’s starting to make me wanna find the next cliff and nose dive it like a kestrel. What if my rantings were about our progress defeating Corona and climate change and inequality and obesity and all things neo-con, er Liberal, er fascist.

What if we all just wake up one day and decide that we’d had enough. Enough of just waiting around watching storms get worse, public health get more viruses, forests get more fires, politicians get more useless and ExxonMobil make more money. What if we act now to survive our extinction – to roll back global warming. To save the planet.

What if we decided that Donnie and Bolsonightmarearo were wrong and Jacinda and Greta were right and that the way to attack the Corona consuming every inch of our daily, increasingly Netflix driven lives, was to kill it by waging war on the real problem – the climate thing. Getting all the public money flying around to go on green, healthy, climate friendly initiatives including walkable, bike loving cities, green spaces everywhere with rewilding verges, parks and commons.

What if all national treasures, reserves and crown lands were rewilded, what if every country started a major national tree planting campaign, what if the politicians and business leaders went all in and insisted on 100% renewable energy by 2035. What if us citizens stopped eating meat before dinner and shopped on foot to local stores and walked to work and to school and got on aeroplanes way less. What if we invested more in universal healthcare systems. What if our carbon emissions starting decreasing on an annual basis, what if pollution became an old desease we eradicated like malaria, what if national pride was restored by living in the greenest, healthiest and happiest place on the planet. You know, like Disneyland or the Playboy mansion or New Zealand.

And then again, what if we don’t. What if we do nothing and we have another five years of Corona 1.0 and Corona 2.0 and Donnie and Bozzer and heat and rain and fire and bedlem. What if we do nothing and the planet swallows us up and spits us out like a bug in a Big Mac. Or what if China and America decide that nuclear war is easier than tackling climate chaos and more fun than the endless twitter back and forth. What if Xi Ping Pong and Donnie end up being the last men standing – you know like a same sex Adam and Eve. What if these were like our least few years on this earth – like EVER.

You choose and God help you.

I’m emigrating to New Zealand.

If you enjoy these posts on ‘Surviving’ all I ask is for you to support a vital Climate Change project, called DSP, by giving just £3 or just over $3 per month. To find out more CLICK THIS LINK.

5 New Long Term Consumer Trends from Coronavirus

It is clear that the Coronavirus crisis, the lockdowns and the new sets of behaviours required to survive it have brought about a number of short term changes but, perhaps more importantly, Covid-19 will usher in a number of new, longer term trends. We believe that there are 5 major trends that will establish themselves as more permanent global shifts.

We should not forget that the massive societal adaption currently in process is profound for it is lasting, it is global and it has extreme structural economic consequences. We will have to adapt to another 12 – 18 months of social distancing across our societies and businesses while also accepting that a once in a century great depression has started and will take many years to work itself through.

How we adapt to these changes as consumers, as businesses and as politicians will prove to be a vital barometer of our likely success in the coming years.

Here are 5 New Long Term Consumer Trends from Coronavirus:

1. Healthier living – our attitude to food, exercise, wellbeing and the environment will be fundamentally altered by Coronavirus. A growing body of evidence, alongside a once in a lifetime lockdown experience, should give rise to a grand awakening of our combined consciousness around a more frugal, a more natural and a healthier existence. This, in turn, will accelerate the shift towards more sustainable and eco-friendly products and services and a greater need for in-home enhancements and experiences. Expect to see wider adoption of vegan diets, plant based cuisine, organic foods and drinks, eco-fashion, eco-tourism, eco-DIY, books on climate friendly behaviors and activities, greater focus on energy and health efficient homes and offices, less international travel and an accelerated shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles and tools. We should also expect to see a greater demand for nature based experiences, gardening in general, wildlife gardening, rewilding, vegetable gardens and foraging.

2. Homeworking – perhaps one of the biggest single economic behavior changes coming from the Coronavirus lockdowns has been the global adoption of home working. This is a trend that has been building for a decade or more but has now cemented itself as the new way for companies to organise themselves post Coronavirus. Every company has had to figure out how to do it and now that they have made the complex shift they will not want to give it up. Indeed, economic necessity will drive its further adoption particularly given the ensuing economic shock. Continued social distancing requirements post lockdown will force companies to redesign offices with fewer desks per square foot meaning fewer employees in the office and more working from home. Employees will also push for continued home working as they will have discovered how much time and stress was wasted on commuting. Home working is logical given the wider shift by businesses to move their organisation online and is a natural consequence of the trend towards knowledge based business and the outsourcing of manufacturing and distribution. After all, if you can serve your customers online why can’t you organise your workforce to work online as well?

3. eServices – as Coronavirus has accelerated the shift to ecommerce it will also create far greater demand for online home services. After all, if you can use a video and perhaps even a remote engineer on Zoom to explain to you how to install the new kitchen sink, or washing machine or simple plumbing fix and it is cheaper, then why not? Particularly as we will remain concerned about allowing tradespeople into our homes for some time after lockdown. We should also see a shift towards online plumbing services, simple electrical, gardening, DIY, car repair and more. Indeed this falls into a growing demand for wider automation across industries.

4. Online Sports & Culture – thanks to social distancing guidelines we will have spent a good portion of 2020 avoiding going to sports events, concerts, live performances and theatres. Instead we will have learnt to consume sports fixtures digitally possibly fused with gaming, watching live concerts on YouTube and enjoying theatre on Netflix. Indeed with the rollout of 5G more immersive, higher-definition digital experiences supported by a new generation of inbuilt and stand alone speakers will make consuming sports and culture from our living room or dining table more enjoyable than ever. Content creators, sports professionals and artists, like any product manufacturer, will have used the Coronavirus crisis as a trigger to shift more of their professional endeavours, content and communications online.

5. Digital Healthcare – for governments to continue to offer universal healthcare at scale but in a more financially sustainable way they will have to shift to digital healthcare. Coronavirus will show us the power of education and communications online using WhatsApp, Zoom or LinkedIn to deliver any kind of business, research or educational meeting. This has made it more than possible for the digital provision of basic healthcare so that doctors brick and mortar surgeries and hospitals can be reserved for a potentially higher number of more seriously ill patients and the future pandemics which are bound to hit us with greater frequency like severe weather events have become a part of our new reality. Indeed, there are a number of all digital healthcare platforms gaining traction across the western world. We should not forget that Covid-19 is just the latest in a regular series of public health crises we are dealing with as a consequence of global warming. Until we start tackling the climate crisis, sustainably removing carbon and other pollutants from our atmosphere while halting the destruction of key habitats for wildlife and natural plant life, we will have to get used to a steady stream of public health crises whether from pandemics, droughts, flooding, wildfires or industrial and urban pollution.

How industries and specific solutions are shaped to address the above 5 trends could have profound implications on our movement, privacy and civil liberties. The right balance, particularly with regard to civil liberties, will need to be maintained. Choosing the right politicians, policies and organisational leaders through this shift will be a greater focus of debate.

But there can be little doubt that the consumers, businesses and politicians that are the quickest and best at adapting to these changes will find the greatest success in the new world. New industries will be born and we should think hard about how we develop our skills so that we can work in the climate industries, eco-product manufacturing and eco-service delivery, healthier living industries, renewable energy and climate science, homeworking product manufacturing, design and consultancy services, digital home services, online professional services, online sports and entertainment and digital healthcare.

If you enjoy these posts on ‘Surviving’ all I ask is for you to support a vital Climate Change project, called DSP, by giving just £3 or just over $3 per month. To find out more CLICK THIS LINK.

The Next New Norm – The Secret to Not Getting ClimateF***ed

Now that we’re used to the Corona in our lives, the lockdown loonies, Great Depression 2.0 and the fact that Kim Jong Ding-dong is dead we thought we should try to look to the next new norm. You know, the one where we start to exit lockdowns (Brits exempt) and rediscover the simple joys of visiting a park without getting arrested, grabbing a coffee at Starbucks reminding us that it’s way cheaper at home and parking the teens at the beach to accidentally forget to pick them up for a week. Let’s not, though, underestimate the importance of survival skills.

The smarty pants among us will be figuring out which of the last ‘new norms’ (Christ I’m sounding like a politician) will become permanent changes cos if they don’t we’ll all get mothered by pandemic 2.0 just lurking round the corner called ClimateF***ed. And I don’t know about you but I’ve kinda had enough of lockdown 1.0 so I’m really not into an even longer, more invasive lockdown 2.0 which by its very nature will be too late so all our proverbial little fingers in the damn will, of course, do absolutely sod all to delay the inevitability of getting well and truly ClimateF***ed.

So here are the 5 key elements to ‘The Next New Norm – the Secret to not getting ClimateF***ed’:

1. Healthier living – der yeah! You see lockdown loonies gave us material monsters the chance to step back, breathe in the polluted air from our shitty shoebox apartments and realise that there had to be something more to life and Levi’s and the Big Mac. Well, OK, maybe not the Big Mac. We’ve reconciled our lowly consciousnesses to the fact that we’re gonna have to trade in some old crappy behaviours to keep, well, living. And we’ve had the once in a generation opportunity to learn to appreciate walks in the park so long as we don’t dawdle, making our own food cos there’s no point waiting for Dave from Tesco to start stocking pasta again and even enjoying our jungle of a garden because it’s better to hang out there than get Corona on the street. Going forward we’ll travel less mostly because we’ll all be broke, we’ll want less pollution cos they’ll prove that pollution feeds Corona (not the beer) and Donnie and Bozzer will figure out that their only chance of survival beyond the botched Corona thing will be to pin their entire machine and slogan making team on the next hot trend cos more than anyone they don’t want to get caught behind yet again and get politically ClimateF***ed. Plus all those self help and yoga stretch pants books that went straight in one ear and out the other will suddenly make the smallest amount of sense so we’ll all succumb to the healthier living, deep breathing, all-avocado cool aid.

2. Home Working – yep, not because we all loved it. But because our tight ass bosses spent all that money on Zoom licenses to get through lockdown loonies and won’t want to see them to go to waste. So, bye bye company car, meetings for gossip in the hang out room, sweet company lunches and trips abroad or anything whatsoever that broke the endless monotony of working at this dump called workplace. But, hello Dave boy Attenborough who’s gonna remind us 24 hours a day that our new found zero travel life has cut emissions to the point where we just saved another rhino. But, hey, their wellbeing comes first in this green new deal, next new norm.

3. eServices – cos we all figured out that watching a YouTube video on how to fix the kitchen sink was a frig load cheaper and easier than trying to persuade a plumber to come rip us off, give us Corona and not fix the thing properly so he gets to do it all over again in a few weeks time.

4. Online Sports and Culture – let’s face it the only thing more amusing than Live Aid was watching Lady Gaga trying to coerse a bunch of geriatric rockers to rock it somewhat out of tune from their homes/gardens/the morgue. Beyond that, pretty soon PlayStation and Xbox will figure out that lockdown loonies taught us all to play soccer way better than those slightly spoilt, entirely analogue pro footballers so they’ll make the next set of games so friggin realistic with the AI thingy that we won’t need the offline players anymore making the Xbox sub a must have and the season ticket a must dump. Plus who wants to sit with a gazillion other sweaty, drunk people in a stadium or theatre or anyplace whatsoever only to get spat on, puked over, hot dogged or just to catch the Corona from them.

5. Virtual Healthcare – see 3. and the whole plumber thing. Plus, we’ll have had enough Corona hospital time to last many a lifetime and every government will have gone broke trying to (not) fix the Corona thing. So we’ll have to figure out DIY health. And pretty soon 3D printing will get us our stay at home pill dispenser, ventilator, vaccine and robot care giver which will prove more than handy given the Great Depression 2.0 meant we sold our car. At least the car bit will make Dave boy Attenborough happy which seems to be the game with this climate solving thing – right?

Christ, I think I’ll just go plant up a wildflower meadow.

If you enjoy these posts on ‘Surviving’ all I ask is for you to support a vital Climate Change project, called DSP, by giving just £3 or just over $3 per month. To find out more CLICK THIS LINK.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Coronavirus

Sticking with the slightly biblical theme of yesterday’s post I thought that today we should delve a little deeper into who exactly are the saints and the sinners of Covid-19.

Let’s start with the easy one – the saints: naturally the list includes anyone working for any healthcare service anywhere in the world with a big shout out for Kim Jong-ding-dongs poor about to be decapitated physicians, but also care givers (particularly elderly care providers in the thick of it), delivery people, supermarket staff and generally anyone supporting us through lockdown lock-me-up-and-throw-the-key-away-hell-after-all-have-you-met-my-teens? Added to this list should be Milan’s town planner who’s just figured out that pedestrianising the city is the best way to keep Italian drivers off the streets and keep everyone else alive. And a last saintly hat tip goes to Netflix for bringing us ‘Tiger King’ cos we naively thought that shit couldn’t get weirder than this Corona thing!

But, that’s the obvious list. And the one we should all keep raving about and shouting or clapping or singing or walking round and round the garden on a zimmer frame for or climb endless Everest like stairs or Christ even binge watch the Kardashians for. You see, while politicians may have dawdled/dragged their proverbials/hid in the nice house yet somehow paraded their shiz all over prime-time press conferences the saintly ones have been out there holding us all together. You know actually doing stuff called work and getting us what we need to get through lockdown-looneys. And the great irony is, now we’re stuck at home in gracious perpetuity (with the teens), we’d bight off any of their left feet or arm or pretty much any limb just to be able to go back to work. Yes, the same work we’ve been bitchin’ and moaning about for the last God knows how long suddenly seems as attractive as a simple back massage from Pamela Anderson. The same bosses we’ve been whining about and trying to undermine at every turn now seem almost, well, saintly. Particularly when those bosses are politicians who seem to think its OK for them to go back to work but that we still can’t cos we haven’t figured out how to work Zoom.

But there are also unsung hero’s (obviously not Andrea Bocelli) and we’d (not weed) like to shout them out. There’s the Pope who wears a weird robe thingy while walking the empty streets of Rome with some shady looking dudes in black suits stalking him as he tirelessly searches the alleyways for his flock cos they haven’t shown up at St Peters Square the last few Sundays. There’s Mick Jagger who gets the prize for shutting himself in a pint sized room for that online concert to make himself look bigger and presumably poorer to provide a cover for the fact that he pays Charlie Watts so little he can’t even afford a drum kit and also for the fact that he’s the only man on earth smaller than Tom Cruise. There’s Mike Pence for putting up with Donnie and there’s anyone working with Pence for putting up with him and there’s obviously the entire British population for putting up with you know who.

There’s CNN’s Chris Cuomo for getting Covid-19 and being forced to stay on air while his dad gets it up the rear from Donnie and there’s all of us for having to watch their kinda weird English finance news presenter dude bang on about hoping we all have a ‘profitable hour’! A f****** ‘profitable hour’ tard, how in pandemic hell are we supposed to have ANY ‘profitable hour’ when we’re all bankrupt or doled up or paying others to take our oil cos we lost the manual that explained how to switch the goddamned well off or just plain friggin broke thanks to this Corona thing which, seemingly, he’s the last dunce on the planet to think is not a pandemic but a friggin Mexican beer. Christ, does he watch his own news? Maybe he finds himself as annoying as the rest of us and dozes off when he’s on.

There’s my plumber who’s gotta deserve a shout out in the vain hope that he might show up this decade once we’re set free and hopefully won’t hit me up the ass with partial amber friggin traffic light ‘special’ lockdown-looney pricing. Then there’s my mother, who let’s face it, is the only person out there that actually bothers to read this crap. Love you mum. But, last of all, there’s me. Yep, me. For doing nothing more than putting up with the teens. You see, when they had to go to school for real they could get themselves up just fine. Now you know who has to get them up for ‘school’ every friggin day which you would have thought has gotten easier given their commute is exactly five steps past the kitchen which they raid on the way and all they have to do all day is to sit on the couch and pretend to listen to some poor teacher politely bang on to them online while instead they watch TV, do their nails, fall asleep, raid the fridge a little more, social media meme each other and scream the moment I ask them to do anything what so friggin ever as all of a sudden they miraculously (yes Francis they can do it too) have way too much school stuff on one screen when they’re actually watching Kim, and I don’t mean Kim Jong-ding-dong. Then, of course, when it comes to them having dinner or exercise or anything that doesn’t involve them lying on the couch pretending to be at school they just shout out about how school online means it runs all day and night and seven days a week and could we please just keep bringing the food and drinks so they can keep 100% focused on their studies really, honest, promise. And yet, somehow, I can only hear the odd bit of teacher coming out of the room that they keep tightly locked like a government backed loan, but really all I friggin hear ALL day is Kim or Kylie or Bieber-still-with-a-baby-face-no-matter-how-hard-he-tries-to-be, well, hard or friggin Billie Eilish I-got-my-hair-stuck-in-the-paint-machine and the entire goddamned cast of Glee.

And seeing as that list took a while/my sanity I guess I’m gonna go put my feet up with the teens and you’ll have to read my next post for the list of Coronavirus bad and uglies.

If you enjoy these posts on ‘Surviving’ all I ask is for you to support a vital Climate Change project, called DSP, by giving just £3 or just over $3 per month. To find out more CLICK THIS LINK.