A Life Lived Differently
My son turned five yesterday and, for the first time in more than six weeks, I ventured into a store to buy him one of those shiny t-shirts he loves so much. As I rolled my cart down the isles, browsing through shelves, exchanging glances with fellow masked shoppers as we tried our best to maintain that six-foot distance, it all seemed, almost … normal.
Funny, how quickly we can adjust to a life lived differently.
Like many of you, living differently has been on my mind a lot this past week as the coronavirus death toll kept crawling upward and as we marked one milestone after the other — the 10th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, oil prices dropping below $0 a barrel for the first time in history.
Transitioning from the fossil fuel economy to a green energy-based one. Radical change for a just and sustainable world. Degrowth. These ideas have been around for a while. Many of us have supported them in theory. A select few have already made that shift in their personal and professional lives. But for the vast majority of us, the idea that entire societies could change their lifestyles drastically almost overnight seemed preposterous. Until now. Like it or not, these past two months are showing us clearly what the late South African human rights activist Nelson Mandela famously said: “It always seems impossible until it's done.”
Maureen Nandini Mitra
Editor, Earth Island Journal
And PSA: That thing Trump said yesterday about using disinfectant injections to kill coronavirus? Just. Don’t.
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