Coronavirus. Hugh Wheelan: RI readers, can we help you help each other?

This weekend saw the first signs of cool spring sunshine here in London. What ghastly irony as the city entered the ‘lockdown’ that wasn’t, and on the UK’s Mother’s Day (March 22)! 

The human need to gather in families, get out and walk, cycle, run around and breathe in the city’s parks overtook the fear of Coronavirus. But social distancing doesn’t work well if people use the same door/gate handles and queue for the same cups of tea. The UK hasn’t understood yet that people really must Keep Calm and Stay at Home, nor have they been forced to; I fear the science and the maths of Covid-19 will be a grim reminder that both should have happened. 

Today, the sky is richly blue, devoid of plane exhaust trails. The flight path I live near here on the edge of Epping Forest just outside London is no longer an aerial artery. 

Even in home isolation, signs (or lack of them) of the personal, social and economic effect of this crisis are overhead.

On our daily editorial meeting this morning led by RI Editor, Sophie Robinson-Tillett (currently working remotely out of Devon after being on holiday when we closed the office), and supported by Daniel Brooksbank (at home in Lewisham, South London), I chipped in that we should ask RI’s readers: how can we help? 

We have a platform: are there messages that our readers need/would like to be transmitted?

Do any of you, our readers and peers, have thoughts/opinions that you want to share with other RI readers at the moment that could help connect fellow RI professionals with the ideas and practical advice that will keep us focused on both the urgency of the current situation and the important work that must go on when things return to normality.

We’ll be seeking out opinion on subjects from thought leaders, but don’t hesitate to get in touch with myself, Sophie or Daniel if you’d like to contribute.

It might just be as simple as a personal message of what you are doing professionally that could help/interest others; the equivalent of the positive local action we’re seeing as people take to social media to look out for elderly and vulnerable neighbours.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Reading matters:

Blue skies…blue skies thinking! More time at home, more time to read?

Here’s a few papers/websites/ideas I’m dipping into at the moment: I’d love to hear yours!

1.   Bret Victor is an interface designer, computer scientist, and electrical engineer known for his talks on the future of technology: take a look at his thinking on what technology can do for climate change.

2.   Bill McKibben’s recent piece in Rolling Stone

3.   Read The Green Swan: Central banking and financial stability in the age of climate change, by Patrick Bolton, Morgan Despres, Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, Frédéric Samama and Romain Svartzman.