The Coronavirus Crisis as a Social and Scientific Challenge | Umweltbundesamt

The importance of sustainability and resilience

Blogpost by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Renn

A reconstruction after the coronavirus crisis must be a transformation which strengthens the sustainability of the economy and society. The huge state interventions and investments to protect the economy which have been prompted in the short term by the coronavirus crisis must therefore be oriented towards the guiding concept of sustainability. Otherwise, new money will be used to reinforce rather than correct an already misguided course of development away from sustainability and the conservation of resources.

As long as a relationship with the environment prevails that treats it as an inexhaustible resource and landfill site, and as long as the responsible stakeholders are not confronted with the principles of sustainability and social justice, the causes of the crisis will never have been considered.

It is necessary to strengthen the resistance against future crises, rather than simply fighting the symptoms with huge amounts of money so as to "catch one's breath". For this reason, preventive sustainability and focusing on the common good must now be at the heart of all the regulations and measures to successfully combat the multiple and separate crises of the present.

The current coronavirus crisis is one in a long series of epidemic-based crises. In this respect, an overlooked problem of recent crises is that, in addition to the increasing mobility of people, the general loss of resilience of ecosystems and increasing inequality are playing a significant role. We are only just beginning to understand the systemic interactions between social processes, such as industrialisation and globalisation, and anthropogenic changes to the natural environment.

Resilience must be understood holistically as being "planetary health", i.e. as the interdependent resilience of human health, societies and ecosystems. In this respect, the economic and social reconstruction in the wake of the coronavirus crisis must contribute to strengthening the resilience of our global society to crises of this kind.

The crisis as a challenge and opportunity to learn lessons

Like any disruptive event, the coronavirus crisis is an opportunity to rethink structures. The crisis is therefore a challenge for society as a whole, including the world of science, which has only just begun to consider the systemic nature of the crisis and its long-term causes and effects, and to act accordingly.

The lessons learned from the crisis must now be put to good use. In particular, the crisis has contributed to raising the awareness for the importance of collective resources for society itself, the preservation of cultural achievements, and prosperity in the 21st century. The positive lessons learned include the discovery of previously untapped potentials, such as the replacement of travel with digital communication and virtual meetings, as well as the opportunities to be found in slowing down.

These lessons can be quickly forgotten. This should be prevented on a proactive basis. However, the trauma of a degree of disruption to social interaction not seen for generations must be overcome first, especially in terms of its intergenerational dimension.

A new balance

The relationship between collective resources and individual interests, as well as the relationship between public services and intervention, and private initiative and responsibility, must be re-balanced. Government institutions should manage the development of technical infrastructure so that a sustainable supply of energy, mobility, housing, health, etc. is linked to the development opportunities of the market.

A key challenge for achieving a sustainable economy is the transformation of the energy system, which is also a unique opportunity for innovation in Germany. The current coronavirus crisis does not counteract the urgency of the energy transformation, it reinforces it. The unprecedented economic rescue measures taken by Germany and Europe can have a paradigmatic character for the energy transition, which itself requires investments and radical fissures that are at least of the same order of magnitude. A price on carbon from fossil fuels must be agreed and established internationally, which has a genuine steering effect. At the same time, all the existing countervailing measures should be brought to an end.

A post-coronavirus reconstruction must strengthen the role of science and research for analysing and understanding the causes and consequences of crises, also to counter the dangers of ideological instrumentalization. In the future, the world of science will have to face the challenge of contributing to solving the great problems of mankind beyond disciplinary boundaries more strongly. The need to develop specific solutions quickly must not hide the fact that holistic, systemic perspectives are crucial in order to rise to the further challenges and threats to human societies.

(Jointly with Christoph Rosol, Benjamin Steininger, Thomas Turnbull and Giulia Rispoli)

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Author:

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Renn, Born on 11th July, 1956, in Moers. Degree in physics Free Univ. Berlin (1983), doctorate in mathematics Berlin Technical Univ. (1987), collaborator/co-editor of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (1986-1992), Assistant Professor (1989) and Associate Professor Boston Univ. (1993), Simon Silverman Visiting Professor of History of Science at Tel Aviv Univ. (1993), Visiting Professor of Philosophy ETH Zurich (1993-1994), Adjunct Professor Boston Univ. (since 1994), Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (since 1994), "Honorarprofessor" (part-time prof.) Humboldt-Univ. of Berlin (since 1996). Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 2005, honorary professor for the history of science at the Free University of Berlin since 2006.