The need to point out practical and ideological changes in a post-pandemic world.
It is clear nowadays that there are marked differences in the way climate and environmental changes and how their effects on health and their implications have been managed, both in terms of countries’ success in preserving the health of their citizens, and in the magnitude of inequalities. Unfortunately, no matter how bad climate and environmental changes were before the pandemic, and no matter how hard it exposed the inequalities in our society, the post-pandemic world may experience even greater climatic and environmental changes and inequalities [1].
The combination of these climatic and environmental changes in the context of Sars-CoV-2, which causes the current COVID-19 pandemic is not a pandemic, but a syndemy. Syndemies are characterized by biological and social interactions between conditions and states, interactions that exacerbate the susceptibility of devastating effects that threaten the planet.
Addressing climate and environmental changes and Sars-CoV-2 as a syndemy will invite a broader view, covering food, energy, water, education, employment, housing, health, aging and the environment [2].
It seems that the world lives a “cognitive dissonance” to conserve the planet’s habitability, threatened by climatic and environmental changes, before and after the context of Sars-CoV-2. In this way, the rapid environmental deterioration is leading to a “not-to-worry” state to our future grandchildren and our grandchildren’s grandchildren.
For sure there is a clear need for a major planetary reformulation, in practical and ideological terms, because without it, social and economic disparity along with climate and environmental changes will persist for longer. The risk of avoiding or ignoring this reformulation leads to increasing global inequalities and divergences. COVID-19 is likely to stay with us for quite some time – and its aggregate consequences for climate and environmental changes, for much longer [1].
Finally, in reality, when thinking about a global recovery plan, we face a radical change in scientific knowledge, because it is intangible and does not dissipate when it is shared, making it probably stronger than it was before the pandemic [3].
Adding intangible, immaterial scientific knowledge to the planetary connectivity that the growing technology allows, will really generate a society of growing scientific knowledge that will radically change the concept of sustainability and the planet organization system [4].
Cleiton Aoyagi da Silva
School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities
University of São Paulo
Tania Araujo Viel
School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities
University of São Paulo