The coronavirus crisis isn’t just disrupting our day-to-day lives, it’s disrupting our way of life. We are being reminded on a daily basis of the bravery and vital contributions of our key workers, the very people who have born the brunt of a decade of austerity and government cutbacks. At the same time many of us have stopped commuting, stopped using cars and almost all of us have stopped flying. Businesses have had to change overnight, developing new networks of production and distribution that rely on local, not international, connections. This combination of collective effort, innovation and changes to the rhythms of our lives may have dramatic consequences for us and the environment. GQ spoke to the co-leader of the Green Party, Jonathan Bartley, about these issues and more.

What has the coronavirus crisis revealed about the environment and our society?

JB: It’s clear that what’s happened is raising fundamental questions about who the economy is for and who we see as key workers: those who have been low paid suddenly become absolutely vital to the economy and there’s a realisation of how interdependent we all are. Boris Johnson going out of his way to say there is such a thing as society really has probed the values we held even six months ago and certainly the values that were around austerity. The increase in welfare spending is significant, but not enough. This is costing a lot of money and rightly so; we need to see businesses and individuals protected.

So when you ask what’s going to pay for this, there is a realisation that those who have made a lot of money over the past few decades from the fossil fuel economy have done so as a result of key workers in education, transport, the supply chain. It is time for those who have made a lot of money to step up and contribute to the infrastructure that has contributed to their wealth. Suddenly there is a realisation that we are all in this together, in the right sense, and we owe a great debt to the key workers and the low paid.

Lots of people who have been told it was not possible to do their jobs from home are finding that they can and this is being realised by employers too. Businesses, organisations and charities are having to adjust, because there is no choice and they are seeing there are different ways of working. For many people it will be hard to go back.

Protecting and supporting local supply chains will create more resilient local economies in the future

In the past few weeks a lot of firms have readjusted and adapted and new local services based on local supply chains have emerged everywhere.

JB: We’ve found a lot of big organisations are not as resilient as they thought and maybe the emphasis should be on supporting smaller and independent businesses rather than bailing out the airlines. Protecting and supporting local supply chains will create more resilient local economies in the future. We’re learning that when you rely on things being flown from long distances there is a lack of security and resilience, so local supply chains are good for the climate and good for the planet. There will be more economic shocks in the future so more localised supply chains such as the ones we’ve seen growing [during the lockdown] will be even more important.

As individuals and businesses rethink their attitudes to their work, their premises and commuting, could all these feed into a virtuous circle that benefits the environment?

JB: Flexible working is so important and we hope there can now be a renewed debate about a four-day week. The emphasis shouldn’t be on businesses, because government has to create the conditions for change to happen. Businesses are struggling and supporting them absolutely has to be the immediate and number one priority.

We’ve all been surprised by how much we can adapt, although there is still a long way to go in the crisis. We believe in our Green New Deal policies and we’ve seen during this crisis that redistribution of wealth can happen to support the things we now see as more valuable. In the future, the Green New Deal is the way to go, because although it involves borrowing it also involves job creation and a lot of industries are going to have to shift and change and that kind of adaptability we are seeing now shows they can change and transform, provided they are given the support and security they need by the state. Fundamental to this is a basic income that replaces benefits – with the transitions that the economy is going to have to make, everyone needs that guarantee of security. That’s been highlighted by the current crisis.

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Is there any way the transport network could be recalibrated in the light of the sudden drop of travel we’ve seen during the crisis?

JB: When you’ve got the head of the AA [Edmund King] saying we’ve got to rethink transport to support home working, including looking again at proposed new road building, you realise how big it could be. We want people to see new ways of doing things – this can open up new possibilities. Just converting every car to electric is not going to solve the problem: you're still going to get congestion and the pollutant particles from tyres and brakes will still kill people and you need the mass mining requirement to get the minerals for the batteries for the cars, so we need to think more about sharing, car pooling and Zipcars. There has been a new awareness of the sharing economy and how it can benefit everyone. People will still need to get around, but in different ways. People will think, “Maybe I don’t need this car I hardly use and that is costing me money."

The airline industry is a very interesting example, because people are realising they don’t have to travel to have their business meetings. It’s the binge flying of 15 per cent of flyers who take 70 per cent of flights that can change. We can share out flights more evenly without expanding airports.

A crisis precipitates change because we see things we haven’t seen before

If the crisis has changed people’s experiences, will it also change their mindset towards the subjects we’ve been discussing?

JB: It’s too early to tell, but the challenge for the Greens has always been to stand in front of people and say, “This is what it could be like” and “Something different is possible.” The Second World War caused such seismic change in society, for example liberating women and breaking class distinctions and the solidarity that created the NHS and the welfare state. A crisis precipitates change because we see things we haven’t seen before.

Do you think the crisis will affect attitudes to the natural world?

JB: Access to nature is so important and we’re still calling for the right to roam and opening up some private land for exercise. We need more space for food production on a local level as well if we are to be more resilient. London, in particular is highly reliant on food from outside. Local councils are looking at more local food growing and more people are aware of that all the time.

Is there some scope for a psychological shift in how we see mass consumption?

JB: A crisis like this breaks the cycle of working so hard and buying so much stuff we don’t need. There is something to be said for slowing down the pace of life. It will be different for everyone and many are going through real strain and stress at the moment, but for some it will feel like they have stepped off the treadmill. There are great possibilities for relationships, such as friendships reconnected, because you have to re-evaluate people you might have taken for granted, especially in your close family. It can take something like this to make people stop and think about their lives. On the flip side it does expose inequality even more and forces people to come face to face with what they may never have seen or thought about before: suddenly people know what the level of sick pay is or how much universal credit is worth and that helps to bring pressure to bear for change.

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