The Blind Guardians of Ignorance

The author is a business consultant who has spent 30 years helping companies with strategy development and the management of change, with a special emphasis on the necessary transformation to sustainable production and distribution systems. Subtitled 'Covid-19, sustainability and our vulnerable future', its analytical starting point is the lack of preparedness evident in our current situation, but also in relation to probable challenges in the immediate future. It has been assumed, wrongly in the view of the author, that market forces will drive the necessary change when both the political and economic focus is overwhelmingly short-term and targets are postponed into the future. The author insists that huge government investments will be required in the necessary infrastructure, especially in the transition to a circular economy beyond dependence on fossil fuels in view of declining supplies. There are also challenges arising from the very nature of complexity. Business and political leaders nod and listen politely but their priorities are respectively the bottom line and the next election. The author proposes something akin to the post-war Marshall Plan, but oddly enough he makes no mention of the WEF Great Reset that aims at just such a swift transition to sustainability and sees Covid-19 as a window of opportunity - though personally I find its transhumanist underpinning and surveillance agenda rather chilling.