The campaign to beat the pandemic

Online event – the Ecology and Economics of the Pandemic

An online event to explore the origins and impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Saturday 13 February 2021, 2-6.00pm

Discussions on ecology and economics will be introduced by: Julia Steinberger, Professor of Societal Challenges of Climate Change at Lausanne University, and Lead Author for the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report with Working Group 3. Julia writes at profjuliasteinberger.wordpress.com Rob Wallace, an evolutionary epidemiologist with the Agroecology and Rural Economics Research Corps. He is author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of COVID-19. He has consulted with the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Grace Blakeley, a staff writer at Tribune magazine and author of The Corona Crash: How the pandemic will change capitalism and Stolen: How to save the world from financialisation. Michael Roberts, a British economist who worked in the City of London and many financial institutions for decades. He has written several books on economics and the world economy from a Marxist view, including The Great Recession (2009); The Long Depression (2016); World in Crisis (2018); Marx’s economics after 200 years (2018); and most recently Engels’ economics after 200 years (2020). He regularly blogs on economic issues at thenextrecession.wordpress.com and posts on his Facebook page The chair for the first session will be Diane Abbott, Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, former Shadow Home Secretary and a founder of the Zero Covid Coalition  Register on Zoom:  

Schedule:

 Ecology session14:00 Introductions by Julia Steinberger and Rob Wallace
14:40 Breakout groups
15:10 Q&A and discussion. 15:40 Break. Performance by Pauline Bradley. Economics session16:10 Introductions by Grace Blakeley and Michael Roberts
16:45 Breakout groups
17:15 Q&A and discussion 18:00 Close 

Accessibility guide

We want the event to be as accessible as possible. The meeting will be conducted using Zoom. You will find help and support for Zoom here: https://support.zoom.us. If you are unfamiliar with Zoom we recommend you try it out in advance of the meeting.

If you find multiple images of different people a problem, ensure you have Zoom in “speaker view” which will only show the person speaking.

Within the Zoom app, under settings, there is an “accessibility” section which you can configure in advance of the meeting. This is particularly important if you are using a screen reader, as it enables you to configure what the reader will pick up and what it will ignore.

Automated Closed Captions and Live Transcript will be enabled in the plenary sessions of the meeting but we are unable to provide them in breakout groups. Zoom’s built-in subtitles are visible by default. You can hide them or access them as a full transcript by clicking on the “CC Live Transcript” button within the zoom meeting. On some devices this button may only be visible after you click on “… More”. On an iPad look under “Meeting Settings”. Alternatively a better quality automated transcript will be available by clicking on the “Live” button within the Zoom meeting and opening the custom livestream.

Zoom Chat can be distracting and a barrier to accessibility for some disabled people. Zoom currently has no option for users to choose to fully hide it, so chat for participants will be disabled and it will be used only for announcements from the hosts. However, the chat is useful to increase participation for many attendees, so a separate ‘debate page’ will be provided where people can post comments, questions, announcements etc.

If you have any other accessibility needs please contact info@zerocovid.uk as soon as possible so that we can discuss how to facilitate your participation.