The measures for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, which is stretching the ability of societies around the globe to cope with & adapt to the crisis, perhaps contain important lessons for how we develop greater community resilience in the face of climate change. Collating & sharing those lessons locally will hopefully bring a fresh perspective to the process of creating a local Climate Adaptation Strategy.
Maintaining food supply chains is crucial in ensuring food security, but the coronavirus crisis is starting to put strain on them. Travel restrictions mean that far fewer foreign workers will be able to work on UK farms this year, just as the growing & harvesting season gets under way. A desperate recruiting drive is under way to get UK people newly unemployed, because of business restrictions caused by the crisis, to work on the farms. If that doesn't work, there'll be less food around later on
The coronavirus pandemic has pushed national & local authorities, businesses & civil society groups to consider control measures normally never considered, such as reducing flying, working from home, reducing the level of business activity. As a result, carbon emissions have fallen rapidly. Also, radical measures to increase the ability of local communities to develop resilience during the crisis have been rolled out. This makes the crisis a test case for studying how climate adaptation can work
A key source of resilence for people on little of no income is foodbanks, but they are running out of food due to supermarkets being unable to keep up with demand from shoppers as the pandemic deepens. This letter illustrates the developing food crisis and the urgent measures necessary, such as food rationing: https://www.city.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/523854/PM-Letter-TL-TJM-EPM-final-20-03-20.pdf
In this coronavirus crisis in the UK, there is still plenty of food around, but some big problems are arising with distributing it fairly and in enough quantities to those in most urgent need. Plus many people are running out of money to afford to buy food. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/millions-to-need-food-aid-in-days-as-virus-exposes-uk-supply?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_News_Feed&fbclid=IwAR3fBH47Ib9rTwMGgBzxXvLU-kfHFQ-MbhWSxZ0qYzmJ5BcAPWPLpKU2ILk
The government might even have to bring in food rationing to ensure an equitable & adequate supply oif fiood for everybody, especially given that so many people are running out of cash and some foodbanks are having to shut down normal operations. https://anewnatureblog.com/2020/03/30/coronavirus-diary-the-virus-that-did-a-no-deal-brexit-on-our-food-supply/
The Rapid Tranistion Alliance has some great analyses of how the pandemic is leading to massive, rapid changes in society, economics, and nature: https://www.rapidtransition.org/
The Eastbourne Eco Action Network is a member of the Rapid Transition Alliance, which is asking people to make short videos on their smartphones about what lessons we've learnt from the COVID19 lockdown: https://reset.rapidtransition.org/?r_done=1
This content is created by the open source Your Priorities citizen engagement platform designed by the non profit Citizens Foundation