”[...] The Romans were simply doing what all wise rulers must: not restricting themselves to dealing with present threats but using every means at their disposal to foresee and forestall future problems as well. Seen in advance, trouble is easily dealt with; wait until it’s on top of you and your reaction will come too late, the malaise is already irreversible.
”Remember what doctors tell us about tuberculosis: in its early stages it’s easy to cure and difficult to diagnose, but if you don’t spot it and treat it, as the time goes by it gets easy to diagnose and hard to cure. So it is with affairs of state. See the trouble in advance (but you have to be shrewd) and you can clear it up quickly. Miss it, and by the time it’s big enough for everyone to see it will be too late to do anything about it.”(Niccolo Machiavelli: The Prince)
considering environmental change and COVID-19, just to mention a few examples, best damn words to live by for any (and all) political leaders. Wouldn’t be a bad thing if the people would also keep this in mind after the pandemic crisis has been dealt with and populist/opportunistic politicians begin to demand that money must be taken away from scientific research, social support, medical services and generally speaking from various preparations that would strengthen the nation against the next inevitable (maybe unknown) crisis for the benefit of some short term, politically convenient low hanging fruit -project.
Case in point: Trump disbanded the White House’s pandemic response task force in 2018 and cut funding for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (among other similar organisations).
Sweden had robust infrastructure, plans and storage facilities to handle nation wide crisis situations, but after Soviet Union collapsed all this was severely reduced (along with their army, which also turned out to be a bit of a mistake) because surely no harm could come to them now that Soviet Union is no more? Right?
Fortunately, for example, Finland had not forgotten the many old, hard learned lessons and maintained national emergency reserves (even when there were voices claiming it all to be a waste of national resources), which has now been opened and medical resources are being redistributed to where they are needed, the first time since the Second World War.
See the problems from afar and they can be dealt with. Take the easy way to political glory and suffer the consequences - along with the rest of the nation. Now, knowing this and with lessons learned from the pandemic, what are we going to do with the impending environmental catastrophe?