And he exerciseth all the power of the
first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell
therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
Revelation 13:12
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| ONE POSSIBILITY HOW THE WORLD COULD UNITE BEHIND THE BEAST...via this so-called "new
coronavirus" |
From Real Clear Politics--
"The possibility of climate lockdowns is already being floated by some of
our greatest thinkers. Don't worry, they're following the science.
The possibility of climate lockdowns is already being floated by some of our greatest
thinkers. They see a confluence of global crises as an opportunity. The
perfect storm caused by COVID-19 and the resulting global economic
meltdown offers a chance to take what they see as bold and dramatic
action to save the planet. ...
Mariana Mazzucato, an author and a professor in innovative economics at the University of London, raised the prospect of climate lockdowns.
Q: How would governors and the federal government impose climate lockdowns?
A: Simple: by declaring that climate change is an immediate public health
and national security crisis, and using the same authority granted to
them by public health departments to implement them under the same
guidelines they did for COVID-19."-----SIDENOTE Fome GIZMODO--"Between fires, heat waves, droughts and storms, the climate crisis is an emergency. A new bill demands that the U.S. start acting like it. The
legislation, introduced by Senators Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley
and Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Earl Blumenauer, would require President Joe Biden to declare a national emergency on climate change.
That would give the administration more power to take on the
existential threat, including deploying the necessary resources to do
so. “The massive scope and scale of
action necessary to stabilize the climate will require unprecedented
levels of public awareness, engagement, and deliberation to develop and
implement effective, just, and equitable policies to address the climate
crisis,” the act says. The bill would compel the Biden administration to invoke the National
Emergencies Act. Doing so would unlock the power to draw on nearly 140 statutes... Policies that
currently get tied up in Congressional votes or funding battles would
suddenly become immediately possible, including sending emergency environmental aid
packages to states by using the Stafford Act, or reallocating billions of dollars from the U.S. military budget toward renewable energy construction."
From Future Planet--
"In April, Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, spoke to the Financial Times in
the mid of the country’s lockdown. “We all face the profound need to
invent something new, because that is all we can do,” he argued. “We
have stopped half the planet to save lives, there are no precedents for
that in our history.” People have come to understand “that no one
hesitates to make very profound, brutal choices when it’s a matter of
saving lives. It’s the same for climate risk,” he added. ... Melbourne’s Mayor Capp has been committed to climate action, declaring a
climate and biodiversity emergency in 2019. However, Covid-19 has given
her permission to radically accelerate environmental improvements to
her city. ..As Capp
explained with a smile in her voice, “Now I’ve got more chutzpah.”
From the Guardian--
"Using Sunday as a day of rest and renewal would be good for our personal health as well as the health of the planet. One thing we can easily do to achieve this goal: we can declare Sunday
to be a fossil fuel-free day or a low-carbon day or at least an
energy-saving day. We can
start individually and collectively. The long journey to cut 
carbon
dioxide emissions can start in the here and now.... in the context of excessive carbon dioxide emissions into the
atmosphere, which are bringing catastrophic upheavals, we can and should
restore Sunday to a day for Gaia, a day for the Earth.... Slow is beautiful. Even if we cannot slow down every day, at least slow
down on Sunday. If you are a Christian then Slow Sunday should be
natural to you, if you are a Muslim make Friday your low-carbon day, if
you are Jewish then Saturday can be your day to save energy, if you
follow a secular way of life then choose your own carbon-free day. At
least on Sunday we can be citizens rather than consumers."
From WBCSD---
"As COVID-19 spread earlier this year, governments introduced lockdowns in order to prevent a public-health emergency
from spinning out of control. In the near future, the world may need to
resort to lockdowns again – this time to tackle a climate emergency.
Shifting
Arctic ice, raging wildfires in western US states and elsewhere, and
methane leaks in the North Sea are all warning signs that we are
approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the
future of civilization will require dramatic interventions.
Under a
“climate lockdown,” governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban
consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving measures,
while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling. To avoid such a
scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do capitalism differently."
From Time--
"The Pandemic Remade Every Corner of Society. Now It's the 
Climate's Turn...Now, spurred by alarming science, growing public fury and a deadly
pandemic, government officials, corporate bosses and civil-society
leaders are finally waking up to a simple idea whose time has come:
climate is everything. ... “The world is crossing the
long-awaited political tipping point on climate
right now,” says Al Gore, a former U.S. Vice President ..“We are seeing the
beginning of a new era.”
From Climate Lockdown--
"If
you think the Covid-19 pandemic is bad, wait till you see how climate
change will hit us in the near future if we do nothing now. With
more than half of the planet on lockdown, climate change protests
across the globe have been canceled.... Addressing
the inability to gather, the CLIMATE LOCKDOWN is a protest-in-place. It
reframes the sheltering in place many of us are doing as a form of
protest, of resistance to shortsighted environmental planning while we,
as a planetary community, gain resistance to this new
coronavirus.Transform pandemic anxiety into an engine for change! The
CLIMATE LOCKDOWN is a recognition that the current coronavirus crisis,
like climate change, is a result of our destruction of the nonhuman
world. We are a part of nature. The health of the world reflects the
health of each of us."
From Geography Directions--
"The pandemic that currently grips our world has seen many countries go
into unprecedented lockdowns multiple times.
Characterized by
---stay at
home instructions,
---education going online,
---the closure of non-essential
businesses;
... However, in some parts
of the world they have had unintended benefits such as the reduction in
CO2 emissions in China, public urban space being redesigned for
pedestrians and not cars, the near annihilation of the needless commute;
there are real tangible benefits that have come about surprisingly
quickly. 
After the pandemic fades, we will face new emergencies the
likes of which we have not seen before, not least those caused by the
extreme weather events of climate change, and the social, political and
economic upheaval that will inevitably ensue. These ‘lockdowns’, if
managed and governed properly, could be recast as going into a ‘planetary safe mode’.... Having lockdowns baked into governmental policies, if done properly, can
act as ‘circuit breakers’ in CO2 levels. Clearly, even starting to ‘flatten the emissions curve‘ will require more than lockdowns, it will require totally systemic change and the end of capitalism ...But if lockdowns are recast as ‘safe mode’ can be a vital weapon in the post-capitalist arsenal in fighting climate change."
From Climate Sunday--
"The Climate Sunday
initiative is calling on all local churches 
across Great Britain &
Ireland to hold a climate-focused service on any Sunday before COP26
(November 2021). At this service, congregations are encouraged to make a
commitment to greater action to address climate change in their own
place of worship and community and to use their voice to tell
politicians we want a cleaner, greener, fairer future at the heart of
plans agreed during COP26."
From the Guardian--
"Carbon dioxide emissions must fall by the
equivalent of a global lockdown roughly every two years for the next
decade for the world to keep within safe limits of global heating, research has shown.
Lockdowns around the world led to an unprecedented fall in emissions of about 7% in 2020, or about 2.6bn tonnes of CO2,
but reductions of between 1bn and 2bn tonnes are needed every year of
the next decade to have a good chance of holding temperature rises to
within 1.5C or 2C of pre-industrial levels, as required by the Paris
agreement.
Research
published on Wednesday shows that countries were beginning to slow their
rates of greenhouse gas emissions before the Covid-19 pandemic struck,
but not to the levels needed to avert climate breakdown. Since lockdowns
were eased in many countries last year, there have been strong signs that emissions will rise again to above 2019 levels, severely damaging the prospects of fulfilling the Paris goals.
Corinne
Le Quéré, lead author of the study, said the world stood at a crucial
point as governments poured money into the global economy to cope with
the impacts of the pandemic. “We need a cut in emissions of about the
size of the fall [from the lockdowns] every two years....“We have failed to understand in the past that we can’t have tackling
climate change as a side issue. It can’t be about one law or policy, it
has to be put at the heart of all policy,” she said. “Every strategy and
every plan from every government must be consistent with tackling
climate change.”From CNBC--
"As awful as this pandemic is, climate change could be worse.” So says billionaire Bill Gates in a recent blog post. 
“A
global crisis has shocked the world. It is causing a tragic number of
deaths, making people afraid to leave home, and leading to economic
hardship not seen in many generations. Its effects are rippling across
the world,” Gates wrote.
“Obviously, I am talking about COVID-19. But in just a few decades, the
same description will fit another global crisis: climate change.”
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| Ipsos Mori survey asked international respondents if they thought their government should make environment protection a priority in recovery from Covid-19 |