I've been thinking a lot about the present situation and the next years. Rather than a temporary coronavirus crisis I'm seeing the beginning of a cycling series of crises. It looks to me like our present, unsustainable "growth at any cost" overconsuming, overpopulated civilization has now passed the first hundred yards of an accelerating downhill marathon of crises.
We're just at the beginning phase of the coronavirus crisis. Epidemiologists generally agree that there will be at least another wave, more severe, coming in the fall. Many states have failed to reopen according to the best data and, instead, are hastily attempting to return to "normal" - egged on by the malevolent narcissist in the White House.
This "normal" is pathological - the "normal" economic "business as usual" system is brittle, unsustainable and destructive. Over-everything: consumption, population, pollution, etc. is not a "normal" we should aspire to.
In spite of the hope of many, a return to "normal" is not going to happen. Nature is flashing a bright yellow light at this intersection. The coronavirus has wreaked destruction upon many systems that won't ever return to "normal" but, as I said, this is just the beginning. There are more viruses waiting as humans expand unsustainably into previously undisturbed ecosystems, bats are just one member of an army of vectors. Time is not on our side.
And then there is the climate crisis ready to topple our fragile global food supply chains - among many other dire consequences. There are many other fragile choke points to the systems we have designed for our convenience. I think the next decades will be characterized by a series of crises in many different areas of our unsustainable fossil-fuel based civilization. Civilizations have collapsed before (Jared Diamond, "Collapse" - as one view on this) and ours is beginning such a process now.
The hope, such as it is, is a transition to sustainable, self-sufficient local communities. But a look at my local area shows me that the bleachdrinkers are out in force and have no intention of doing anything but returning as quickly as possible to "normal" - MAGA! The necessary transformation to resilient local communities is fraught with peril. It will be a challenging process and may not work out in the most pleasant manner.
I am very anxious about the next few decades. Maybe, in some lucky communities, a course might be set to a kind of local self-sufficiency, but I am not seeing it at this time. Time will tell and, of course, I can't predict the future, but the more I investigate and study the less sanguine I become. This is not just a problem with a transitory virus, it is a fundamental pathology of an entire way of life. Covid-19 is just a symptom, as terrible as it is.