Yesterday, the Queen addressed the country with a message of self-discipline and resolve. Despite its merits, her speech strikes me as a missed opportunity to encourage us to learn to adapt, and not just hunker down in the face of adversity.

As of April 5th, some 65,000 people have died from Covid-19 globally – or, to be more accurate, have died with Covid-19. By the end of 2020, perhaps we will look back, adjust for the number who might have been expected to die anyway during the year, and compare the adjusted number with the death toll from other killers. Perhaps the total will be a 10-fold increase on where we are now, i.e. 650,000, the typical number that die each year from (or with?) seasonal flu according to the World Health Organisation. Perhaps it will be much lower, and the inquest will begin as to whether there was a global over-reaction to Covid-19. Or perhaps, in the worst case, it will be much higher and with an expectation of annual recurrence. As of now, all possibilities appear to be open.

What seems unlikely, though, is that the inquest would address this question: isn’t a bigger issue facing humanity that of climate breakdown, of which some new viruses, if not Covid-19, might be a symptom? Or this one: can we learn from this experience how to live in different ways, which are not only more sustainable but in some ways more enriching?

Because we can certainly adapt if we have to. With an abruptness that only fear of death can trigger, we are discovering that many jobs can indeed be done from home; that video conferencing often is an adequate substitute for face-to-face business meetings; that many of those meetings can be dispensed with altogether; and that homes and gardens have a certain appeal, as well as cinemas and shops – at least for those lucky enough to have them.

If only we could invest climate breakdown with an equally pressing fear of mortality – assuming more noble sentiments like caring for plants, animals, and the residents of low-lying coastal cities or hot plains, are insufficiently potent – we could really put the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions.

Because there is nothing stopping us. We do not need to use up our own body weight each day in material stuff – the British consume 1.2 billion tonnes of material per annum, according to Professor John Barrett from the University of Leeds – nor be wedded to our travel obsession or diet.

National lockdown provides the perfect opportunity to re-examine myths about economic growth. A current story provides a good example: the Professional Footballers Association claims that a 30% wage cut for footballers will damage the NHS. The same ‘logic’ has been used for centuries to get us to buy things that we don’t need in order to raise tax for things that we do. It is, and always has been, complete nonsense. Let’s invest directly in vital infrastructure and support services; and then consider the additional economic activity that is sustainable as well as life-enriching.

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer’s victory in the Labour leadership contest has been a sideshow to pandemic concerns. His policies include a commitment to re-nationalise the energy industry. For those of us who have worked our lives in the industry and can remember the CEGB, this is a pity. Were he to succeed in bucking the European trend of recent decades, it would be at vast expense and is very unlikely to be good news for either the climate or for consumers.

It is a shame that well-intentioned politicians on the left of the political spectrum have a knee-jerk reaction to profit and private companies, as those on the right have to the holy grail of GDP.