High profile actors, activists and filmmakers have spoken out by urging leaders and citizens to reconsider returning to their old lifestyle after lockdown in life after COVID-19.
In a letter titled “No to a Return to Normal,” actor Juliette Binoche with French physicist and philosopher Aurélien Barrau has penned a plea to urge citizens and leaders to step back and prioritise life over consumerism before resuming normal living routines, in order to prevent risking a second ecological disaster.
It adds that COVID-19 has invited us “to leave behind the unsustainable logic that still prevails and to undertake a profound overhaul of our goals, values, and economies.”
The COVID-19 has killed more than 316,860 people at the time of writing since it first broke out at a wet market in Wuhan, China according to most leading experts studying the virus’ origin.
Immeasurable consequences
The letter published in French newspaper Le Monde stresses that the ongoing pandemic is a direct existential threat further adding that the crisis should make us distinguish the “essential” and not try to overcome the situation with “simple adjustments” since a “global ecological collapse will have immeasurable consequences.”
The letter points to the “pursuit of consumerism and an obsession with productivity” leading us to “deny the value of life itself: that of plants, that of animals, and that of a great number of human beings.”It adds that “pollution, climate change, and the destruction of our remaining natural zones has brought the world to a breaking point.”
Radical transformation
The letter ends stating it is unthinkable to “go back to normal” if citizens and leaders cannot “leave behind the unsustainable logic” and a radical transformation, which requires a massive and determined commitment is required at all levels.