Visions for a Post-Covid World: Defining a Radically New Normal

Beyond precipitating illness and death in a great many people across the globe, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a diverse range of further impacts. Among these, it has revealed that rapid large-scale change in the behaviour of societies is possible, it has led to inspiring stories of human endeavour (and dispiriting stories of human greed), and it has offered a stark warning as to the fragility of current economies. In addition, the pandemic has provided a desperately needed opportunity for reflection on humanity’s present trajectory, a course that is destroying the life-support systems on which we-and the innumerable species with whom we share the Earth-depend. In this collection of new writing, a number of the world’s most exciting environmental thinkers provide their visions for what a radically new normal could look like in a post- Covid world. Between them, they shine a light on a spectrum of key topics, including economics, energy, food systems, education, climate, rewilding, animal rights and communication. AUTHOR: Joe Gray is a field naturalist who lives in the catchment of the River Colne. He has master’s degrees in Zoology from Cambridge and Forestry from Bangor and is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. Joe is also a Co-founder of The Ecological Citizen (a peer-reviewed, nature-centred journal), Chair of GENIE (the Global Ecocentric Network for Implementing Ecodemocracy), and a Knowledge Advisor on ecological ethics for the United Nations’ Harmony with Nature programme. Joe spends much of his spare time, when not in lockdown, wandering the surviving scraps of wild nature within the industrialised landscape that surrounds his home. He also writes fiction under the pen name Dewey Dabbar.