In the wake of COVID-19, is glocalization our sustainability future?

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic provides opportunities for a new kind of a glocalization, in which people live far more local lives than in recent decades but with greater global awareness through a connective world brain. The neoliberal version of globalization has spurred environmental devastation, economic inequality, and excessive global travel. A new glocalization should advance in tandem with reduced air travel, local production, smart growth, and greatly reduced automobile trips, among other measures. Adapted locally but with a globally cooperative ethic, these measures may be the best way to simultaneously alleviate the rapidly moving pandemic crisis and the slower moving environmental crisis.

Keywords

• glocalization
• pandemic
• coronavirus
• sustainability
• climate change