Pandemic postscript
Chris Abel · 2021
Call it what you want: faith in human rationality and ingenuity or just plain faith, unjustified optimism is a dangerous state of mind. As we have now seen with the laggardly responses everywhere to both the climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, it encourages people at all levels of society to think matters are not as urgent as they really are, so they avoid taking the hard decisions and effective actions they desperately need to do. As I write this brief postscript before this book goes to press, there is nothing that I have seen or learned since Covid-19 went global, that has caused me to revise my analysis of the deeply embedded resistance to change in the human psyche and its evolutionary roots; nor, unfortunately, my assessment of the potentially fatal effects for humanity of that resistance.