Whanganui during lockdown. A good old fashioned pestilence as inevitable just deserts. Photo / Bevan Conley
Whanganui during lockdown. A good old fashioned pestilence as inevitable just deserts. Photo / Bevan Conley
Comment
Jeremiah was a big cheese in the pantheon of ye olde Hebrew prophets. So much so that, if prophesy was an Olympic sport, Jeremiah would be on the podium.
But little is heard of Jeremiah these days. On the odd occasion he crops up, it's usually in the contextof being a bit of a wet blanket.
This is because Jeremiah was known as the Prophet of Lamentations, aka the "weeping prophet". He regularly predicted nasty stuff would happen, mainly as cause-and-effect from prior misdeeds.
But often, he was dead right, such as with the destruction of Jerusalem in 587BC, evidently as heavenly punishment for Israel transgressing the laws of the covenant. Similar to the Sodom and Gomorrah situation, where brimstone, salt and fire came visiting as pay packets for perceived sin.
Now, not to draw too long a bow, but sadly it behoves me to be a bit of a Jeremiah.
The occasion now of course involves the deadly plague currently abroad – Covid-19, which many rightly or wrongly regard as the latest example of divine retribution for unspecified sins. A good old fashioned pestilence as inevitable just desserts.
It's equally inevitable that all the drastic measures authorities are necessarily taking in self-defence are seriously disrupting everyday life. Lockdown.
But the fight-back seems to be working. The curve is flattening. We can see light at the end of the tunnel. Trouble is, the light turns out to be the headlight of an approaching train.
Yes, Jeremiah says there's still trouble at mill. Bigly trouble.
All the talk now is of "recovery". Once the curve flattens, we have to "turn the economy around". We have to get the economy "back on track". The yak-shows are alive with economists and sundry pundits pontificating on how soon we can exit the economic wilderness once we've licked Bertie Germ.
But hang on, this "economy" they're talking about, isn't that the same one that already had us donkey-deep?
Unless we radically change, it's global goodnight nurse. Photo / file
The same voracious "economy" which was so seriously screwing up the planet's life-support systems that a 99 per cent consensus of the world's top relevant scientists categorically state it's all-over-Rover unless we drastically change our ways?
They're saying we need to move the economy pronto to, well ... something approximating what's happening right now with the economy as a result of lockdown.
Now what's happening is mega dentist's chair stuff. Economic teeth are being pulled – with no anaesthetic. Jobs are being lost, livelihoods binned, businesses closing and some cupboards are bare.
But don't we and all the other nations who signed the Paris Agreement have to do what we said we'd do in order to meet carbon emission and greenhouse gas reduction targets, and give the planet at least a dog's show of escaping the critical ward?
So when Government et al say they're committed to getting the economy back on track, what they're really saying is they want to resume the hypocrisy of pre-Coronavirus times by pretending best-practice climate change mitigation policies were previously being implemented when clearly they weren't.
In fact, before lockdown, all the stats showed we were not only NOT making progress, but actually going backwards.
Now this is rock-and-a-hard-place stuff. Unfortunately pain is involved. But, unless we radically change, it's global goodnight nurse. At least let's stop kidding ourselves.
What use is getting "back on track" when it's the track with the tunnel, oncoming headlight, and Armageddon?
Covid-19 may indeed be a heavenly visitation. It's starkly demonstrated how fragile human society can virtually crumple almost overnight.
Despite all the present grief and disruption, it could be a God-given practice run for what's really needed, which is to change our rampant fossil fuel-burning consumerist culture big-time. Just like we're doing now.
Some have made comparisons with World War II, which is nonsense. But the War to End All Wars is the one coming. And if we don't permanently change, we're history.
