When asked about the cause of COVID-19’s global spread, Professor Rifkin surprisingly answered ‘climate change’. He explained that what experts had warned about for decades manifested through the virus. His analysis is that the world economy is so intricately interconnected that a problem in one country triggered vulnerabilities in the global system. However, I believed that changes in supply chains or human movement are natural phenomena. Therefore, rather than attributing the cause of the spread to human activity, the more critical question is why the virus was developed in a laboratory and how it leaked out.

Indeed, Dr. Vandana Shiva of India explained how lockdown measures pushed ordinary people to the brink of life and death, mentioning an incident where researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China illegally collected bats in the Indian state of Nagaland. Given these circumstances, the conjecture that the virus leaked due to a laboratory error (see article) seems entirely plausible. Dr. Yan Limeng’s confession from the Wuhan lab also weighed heavily on the mind. Meanwhile, Dr. Shiva pointed out that global corporations like Monsanto have destroyed nature and livelihoods, using the term ‘criminal economy’. Genetically modified (GMO) crops may yield higher initial harvests, but they ultimately deplete the soil, leaving only superweeds and ruining farming. It was also surprising to learn that such GMO soybeans became the raw material for Silicon Valley’s ‘fake meat,’ with Bill Gates behind it.

Professor Ha-Joon Chang’s view that the government’s swift disaster relief payments using public funds were a commendable policy well represented the current administration’s stance. Some felt this narrative was being instilled in the public to justify the role of a ‘bigger government’. Corporate borrowing against credit and assets to operate is fundamentally different from national fiscal spending. Excessive budget spending ultimately means borrowing against future tax revenues, and I was more worried that our next generation would have to shoulder that debt.

Although there were differences in perspective, it was beneficial to understand the times from multiple angles through one book compiling interviews with world-renowned scholars. Today, too, I drove my electric truck with pride in protecting the environment, safely completing my dawn deliveries across Incheon.