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The coronavirus pandemic is now so sprawling that it has revealed the souls of tens of thousands of individuals, from remarkably kind nurses to online sellers seeking to corner the market for hand sanitizers (until finally deciding to donate them). One saga that we should not soon forget involves Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky. On March 16th, out of an abundance of caution, he said, he got an early test. For a week, while waiting for the results, he kept circulating in public, continuing his work on Capitol Hill (where he lambasted and then voted against a bill that would have offered free tests to all Americans), and even working out in the Senate gym and swimming in the Senate pool. The test results came back positive, and Paul then went into self-quarantine.

The reason to focus on this story is not to suggest that Paul is a selfish jerk; he is a medical doctor, for heavens sake. Its because he is the foremost representative of libertarian philosophy in our nations Capitol, and that philosophy has helped produce the world we live in: one in which we struggle to solve both the coronavirus pandemic and the larger climate crisis. Last week, I tried to show how those crises were linked through the variable of time; this week, its social trust thats the issue.

Ayn Rand and her novelsone of which, Atlas Shrugged, was once, according to a survey for the Library of Congress, the second-most influential book in the country helped get this ball rolling. Rands novels are worth thinking about, because theyve shaped the thinking of American leaders since the Reagan era, when Rands acolyte Alan Greenspan became the most powerful economic figure on the planet. This view of the worldthat government is the problem, that we should free individuals and corporations from its clutcheshas made it all but impossible to address global warming. The Koch brothers, for instance, came directly from this milieu; it was after the late David Koch failed in his Vice-Presidential bid on the Libertarian Party ticket, in 1980, that he and his older brother Charles became two of the G.O.P.s biggest funders. Since they were among Americas biggest oil and gas barons, it was no wonder that they opposed restrictions on the fossil-fuel industry, but it wasnt just self-interest: the government action necessary to tackle climate change is incompatible with their belief system. The right-wing syllogism became, I think, the following:

Markets solve all problems.Markets arent solving global warming.Q.E.D.: Global warming is not a problem.

Thats not logical, but it is comforting if youve committed to the basic idea that, as Ronald Reagan once put it, The nine most terrifying words in the English language are Im from the government and Im here to help. But, of course, thats nowhere near the scariest sentence. Try: The hillside behind town is on fire. The subway system is flooded. Your test came back positive. There are no ventilators.

Old impulses die hard. Donald Trumpwho once described himself as a fan of Rands and her book The Fountainhead because it relates to business (and) beauty (and) life and inner emotions. That book relates to... everythinghas been using the pandemic to, among other things, drastically relax what environmental laws remain. Meanwhile, his economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNBC, I just think the private sector is going to solve this disease. As Charlie Baker, the governor of Massachusetts, said, when informed of Trumps desire to pack churches on Easter, Yeah. No. In fact, the countries dealing best with the coronavirus are precisely those with high levels of social trust: South Korea, for instance, where a comprehensive national health system made sure that no one had to worry about getting a test or paying for treatment. Or the Scandinavian nations, which a United Nations report released on March 20th said are in the best position to deal with such crises. Nations with higher levels of social trust and connections are more resilient in the face of natural disasters and economic crises, it concluded, because fixing rather than fighting becomes the order of the day. Its probably no accident that, in many ways, the Nordic nations also lead the climate fight, or that South Koreas ruling party proposed a sweeping Green New Deal to confront the economic slump that the virus left behind. Working together is what humans are actually built to do.

The fossil-fuel-divestment movement has been one of the most productive fronts in the fight against climate change for nearly a decade, growing into the largest campaign of its kind, with endowments and portfolios worth twelve trillion dollars pledging to sell their fossil-fuel stock. But some of this countrys richest universities, including Yale and Harvard, have declined to join, despite votes showing students and faculty overwhelmingly in favor of divestment. So some Harvard students and alumni started a group called Harvard Forward, which, with a petition drive, managed to get five climate-focussed candidates on the ballot in the universitys Board of Overseers elections, which alumni would have been able to vote in beginning this week. (Harvard announced on Tuesday that, because of the coronavirus, it would postpone the balloting until midsummer.) One of them is Thea Sebastian, who graduated from the college in 2008 and the law school in 2016, and is the policy counsel for an N.G.O. called the Civil Rights Corps, where she coordinates nationwide strategies to address race-based and wealth-based injustices in our criminal-legal system.

Harvard is filled with scholars studying the climate crisis. Why do you think the administration has been so unwilling to follow institutions around the world and divest from fossil fuels?

Harvard has been an incredible leader on many issues, taking difficult stances that challenged accepted norms. Take, for example, our leadership on affirmative action. Take our stance on Dont Ask, Dont Tell.

Where our endowment is concerned, we havent shown this same courage. We only divested from apartheid after the moment had passed. And on climate change, were poised to do the same.

In my view, our reticence stems from a belief that investments and values are separable. If were doing good research and going carbon-neutral, we can make money however we want. Its the same bifurcationa line between profit and purposethat describes much of our economy.

The thing is, this bifurcation doesnt hold. Our investments are a crucial instrument of our values. Thats true both at Harvard and far, far beyond. We wont fix climate changeor solve structural inequitieswithout building an economy where companies act and invest responsibly. I want Harvard to lead this charge. And, in my view, that starts with divestment.

Much of your work is on civil rights and structural inequality. Harvard is as close to the center of the establishment as its possible to get. Can it really play a role in dismantling systems it helped build?

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Working Together Is What Humans Are Built to Do: Social Trust Is Key to Stemming the Coronavirus Crisis - The New Yorker