MEDIUM 27 MARCH 2020
Vulnerability in a globally connected world
co-authored by Peter Schlosser, Manfred Laubichler, Clea Edwards, Steven Beschloss, Nina Berman, Sander van der Leeuw, Joni Adamson, Michael Barton, Mark Bernstein, Shauna BurnSilver, Gary Dirks, Jason Franz, Nico M. Franz, Nancy B. Grimm, Julianna Gwiszcz, Deborah Helitzer, Carrie Lloyd, Kathleen Merrigan, Osvaldo Sala, Christopher Wharton and Dave White
COVID-19 must be seen as the largest shock that has hit global society since World War II, with this globally spreading disease resulting in an accelerating loss of lives and societal and economic disruptions of staggering proportions. This global pandemic brings into stark relief the increasingly complex, interconnected and vulnerable systems that define the modern world.
One certainty in this uncertain world is the increasing extremes of many types. Despite this reality, the world’s population was patently unprepared for COVID-19. In principle, we knew from previous events such as the SARS and MERS outbreaks, the Ebola virus occurrences, or — a century ago — the 1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus), that it was only a matter of time before we would be hit by another, possibly more devastating epidemic. Although the exact time and location of these events remain unpredictable, science had suggested how to prepare for such a shock. Reality laid bare our vulnerability across all sectors, scales and boundaries.
COVID-19 hit global society like an earthquake, and it is an event we can expect to happen again, but cannot predict when. This places extreme hardship on most people on our planet because there is little time to respond, and because of the potential for significant loss of human life. A great many authors have addressed various aspects of this crisis, especially the epidemiological dynamics, projections of spreading rates and patterns and the effects of mitigation and suppression scenarios. Here, we focus on the connection of this current crisis to another that is steadily building, although at a much slower pace and on longer time scales: How will a globally interconnected society design, shape and manage its future, in light of all the challenges related to human-induced perturbations of the Earth system?
Possible trajectories of global futures will depend crucially on how the globally interconnected Earth system, including the human domain, can withstand and respond to: (a) known and ongoing changes that frequently occur on long time scales, and (b) shocks that can be anticipated in principle, but whose timing and impacts cannot be predicted. An example of the former are already unfolding changes in the climate system and their consequences, including migration, biodiversity loss, sea-level rise, etc. COVID-19 falls into the latter category. This raises the fundamental question: What do we know about the basic dynamics of the globally interconnected Earth system and its resilience to shocks?
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