systemic basics: Covid-19 & Climate Chance

Maybe in the year 2100, when large parts of the earth are inhabitable (D. Wallace-Wells, New Yorker, annotated version) future generations will ask: Why didn't you prevent this from happening? One possible answer would be: Some did do something, but they were not successful in the end. Why? Of course ignorance and
greed are also part of the picture, but it is not that simple. Like the Covid-19 crisis, climate change needs systemic thinking, that is observing and describing complex structures of relations. Zeynep Tufeci is pointing out in her excellent analysis, the problems of systemic thinking ("The Atlantic"), which is goes beyond "simple reductionism". Covid-19 cases accumulate exponentially and not additionally. These growth rates are difficult to imagine, as also Kate Raworth (2017) illustrate in her book (see References), especially in her chapters 4 (Systems) and 7 (growth). But there is a big difference between the climate crisis and the Covid-19 crisis. A failure in dealing with the Covid-19 Pandemic show immediate results: people are dying. Of course there are also strong indicators for a climate crisis: the earth temperature is rising (global warming, Wp) and the CO2-concentration is also gonig up (NOOA climate gov. has this good graph with backgrounds). But what does it mean, that there are now more than 400ppt CO2 in the atmosphere? This is an abstract figure in the first place. Probably not for the organization 350.org, which rational was (and is more than ever) to point out, what you could do even in country like China (Story telling, thank you Liangyi Chang).           
But back to systemics: the new Cornoa-Virus and Global warming have the same cause as Laura Spinney (in the Guardian) explains. The systemic background is older, as Barnes (2005, see References) shows in her monograph: The development of agriculture (sendentariness) and the spread of diseases have been closely linked, this is historically evident. And also another aspect of this monograph is interesting: Although published 2005, after the first SARS-crisis, the author states that another SARS related outbreak seems to be likely. But then it could be argued: Marx was right, it is the economy that is deciding about the human world, because we are part of the material world (as George Monbiot, Guardian writes in his concluding sentence). Thought the economical explantions are quite decisive it is not the economy alone, it is rather several factors or related to society several functions, which have to been interdependly in an analysis of a  complex society. Here in this blogpost I tried to convince the readers, that two functional systems are related to each other: the economy and the medical functional system. But of course without language these functional systems can't be described or as Niklas Luhmann puts it, they can't be observed. The difference between observation and description has be explained at length in another post. Only one concluding hint here: Luhmann did describe several functional systems among them the Medical (Luhmann 1990) and the economical (Luhmann 1988), but this part of his (large) work. His main theory (theory of society, Luhmann 2012/2013), however is translated (and has been referenced several times in this blog). The German references are also to be find in the reference-list at the end. For some readers they might be difficult to read.        
References
Barnes, Ethne (2006), Diseases and Human Evolution, University of New Mexico Press
Luhmann, Niklas (2012/2013), Theory of Society, 2 Volumes, Translated by Rhodes Berrett, Stanford University Press
idem (1990), Der medizinische Code, in: Soziologische Auklärung, Band 5, Westdeutscher Verlag, Seite 183ff
idem (1988), Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp
Raworth, Kate (2017), Doughnut economics : seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. Vermont: White River Junction
 

Transformations: Corona Culture & Climate Change

The whole process of Modernization was a rapid process of social change(s). The not entirely foreseeable effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are also belong here. Unfortunately it is very likely that the resilience of (world-)society will be further strained and therefore will further jeopardize collective efforts to prevent further climate change. Some possible counter-measures are discussed.
While "tectonic stress" on word wide level follows seldom a serious discussion, a notable counter example is the monograph by Homer-Dixon (2006), which thoroughly examines the parallels of shrinking Energy investments and sudden disruptions of the Energy supply (called "tectonic stresses", 2006: 103). The whole discussion in the Energy-sector needs further examination, which can't be done here. Important here is the notion of "tectonic stress", which is also visible in the Corona-Crisis. That the medical sector is highly stressed by a global pandemic goes without saying, also the disastrous economic effects are obvious. Other effects are less obvious, only for the direct involved stakeholders. Local culture and local media is threatened by the Pandemic.              
Mike Rispoli, director of News Voices, a not-for-profit local news advocacy group, says in the Guardian, Article: "We were living on borrowed time": 
“The possibility of newspapers closing is incredibly worrisome right now, especially because the information we need around the corona virus are things at the local and municipal level,” said Mike Rispoli, director of News Voices, a not-for-profit local news advocacy group (see also the HP of "New Voices" (about local Journalism, "Free Press" network). The existence-threatening situation of Community Journalism (WpE), the situation local newspapers in UK (Guardian) is not not a new phenomenon, as the articles clearly show, but the Pandemic is marking the end. But what the relation to resilience on climate change? If local information-systems are lost, communities can lose their narratives and their are easier to manipulate by simple populist slogans.    
In general climate action is slowed down through Covid-19 (Guardian) and mankind wasn't making enough progress to save the planet from Global warming bevor Covid 19. But how do we know? We know, that global warming (WpE) is real, but it very difficult to judge, weather the already taken measures to prevent further global warming are effective and if they are ineffective, why they are not effective (enough). Climate is not just a global process, there is also Microclimate (in some areas, see the Wikepedia-article). And the most important parmeter used to evaluate measures on a global scale is money, especially in a cost-benefit analysis (WpE has more). According to the OECD (Development Assistance Commitee), there was gap of 2.5 Trillion dollar (SDG-K=HUB an OECD Post). And that was before Covid-19! Now this gap will be even bigger, if first the normal situation is restored (back to Climate Change Culture!) and then the fight against global warming will start again. Only IF (a big IF!) the measures for economic recovery will be combined with the establishment of a new Culture, the culture of sustainability and resilience only then mankind has a change to escape the most severe effects of climate change (because of course global warming is already happening). There are only few possibilities, that the crisis is used to turn the tide, there are more indicators for the opposite (Matt Stoller reports for the Guardian about the situation in the US, 22/3/2020). The Covid-19 crisis is not over, but the discussion for a post Covid-19 economy should start now.           

Reference:
Homer-Dixon, Thomas (2006), The upside of down, Resource and Conflict Analysis, (Souvenir press), London  

Corona-Culture, the crisis of what society?

Is this Blog now about the new Corona-Virus? (Wikipedia has the "official" name and more background) No not really, it is still about Linguistics (Language) and Policy, but the discussion about the Corona-Virus is of eminant importance for mankind and it not only a medical discussion, but also and even foremost a discussion about the Communication of the Society. While "Communication" deserves (even more than) a post on its own, it is here Society, which calls attention, because of the Corona-Culture. While the new Virus originated in China, the roots of it and its rapid spreading are part of the global Corona-Culture, therefore simple China bashing as Trump (in Atlantic, by D. Frum) and S. Hamid (also an Atlantic-article) are doing it, is not showing responsible behaviour in times of the Corona-Culture.  A. Applebaum (also Atlantic) calls the Virus 'America's bluff', which is likely is. But she is only comparing the US to Asian countries, it is not only a problem of the American society, it is a problem of Western societies in general. UK tried to react, by partly mitigating the Virus and then waiting for a Herd-immunity (Wp has more) to prevent spreading the virus long term, a strategy, called risky by specialists and various other stakeholders (2x Guardian). While also the government of the Netherlands seemed to consider Herds immunity as a part of measures against Covid-19 (Spiegel, in German), the German government never considered this. But Germany is also among the nations, which is hit hard by Covid-19, all Western European countries are seiously affected. But a display of the European situation is not possible, only a country by country situation is displayed by Covid 19 display of the Johns Hopkins University (picture below shows the situation 20/3/2020:
B. Zand calls for Global response (in Spiegel International), but without even mentioning the WHO (World Health Organization), which would be a key-player for a global response. Looking on the WHO-pages of the European Countries (by B. Zand called the "European Union Club"), which also show an European Health Information Initiative (EHII). But this EHII seems to be not active at all in the Covid-19 crisis in Western Europe, because there are no recent entries. This means that even in Europe the response to the Covid-19 disease is a national procedure. But although the Virus started in China, the Virus is a product of the modern world, the Coronoa-Culture is global and therefore B. Zand is correct: the response should be global. But the global society has yet not a global awareness and it has no sufficient global institutions. Both problems are related, but not the same.