Back to frugal

Introduction

The COVID- 19 crisis should be a waking up call for all of us, and a time for reflection on how we live and connect to others. Before we go back to “normal”, and feel “confortable” again, can we pause and ask ourselves if the life we were living before this health crisis was fulfilling and sustainable?

It is now clear that overexploitation of our natural resources, excessive travels, and increasing exchanges between countries, along with loss of biodiversity, air pollution, and overcrowded cities, will make pandemics like COVID- 19 very likely to resurface.

It has also become clear lately how some underrated and underpaid professions in health care, education, the food industry, and many more, do play a vital role in our societies.

Now is the time to ask ourselves essential questions about how we live, how we are governed, and how to act as responsible citizens. Now is the time to reevaluate how absurd many areas of our societies are managed, and our natural resources exploited.

The world’s current consumption craze is not sustainable. Our forests, our lands, our oceans and waterways are being polluted more quickly than ever. Species are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Since 1980, greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide have doubled, and average global temperatures have risen by at least 0.7°C. Over the last decades, droughts, heat waves and unstoppable fires have become recurring phenomenons. Over the last couple of decades, new pandemics have risen, such as SARS or COVID- 19, most of them linked to the erosion of biodiversity and the fact that with globalization, a virus can be spread more quickly than ever.

Although global warming is (almost) no longer questioned, the political leadership to take effective measures to reduce it is not there. In order to slow down the destruction of life on earth, and prevent natural disasters and pandemics to become our new norm, not only do we need a political revolution, but also a revolution in the way we live and consume.

If we truly love our children and our planet, a revolution has to happen now. Not in 5 or 10 years, but NOW.

Can we learn to be frugal again?