COVID has forced Australia to re-evaluate its values

First bushfires, now COVID-19, Australia is reeling, and the young risk bearing the brunt. Sweeney Preston, a 22-year-old newsroom contributor for the FYA (Foundation for Young Australians) – as well as a comedian, cinema worker and anthropology student at the University of Melbourne – turns a critical eye on recent events, and describes how it… Read more »

The asymmetric intergenerational impact of COVID: the Italian case

Worrying intergenerational divides were already apparent in Italy following the recent double-dip financial crises, and these can only have been exacerbated by COVID-19. Analysis by Luciano Monti, Adjunct Professor of European Union Policies at LUISS Guido Carli (Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali) in Rome, and Scientific co-director of  the Bruno Visentini Foundation, a research… Read more »

Plagues and Intergenerational Justice

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that future generations have to be protected by wise precautions – both medically and economically. Jörg Tremmel, professor at the Institute of Political Science at the Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany, shows how intergenerational interests are served by an assertive vaccination policy.

How a microscopic virus shines a searchlight on the world’s inequalities

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is unequal, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest – and nowhere is this clearer than in Africa. By David McNair, Executive Director, Global Policy, at ONE,“a global movement campaigning to end extreme poverty and preventable disease by 2030 so that everyone, everywhere can lead a life of dignity and… Read more »

COVID-19 warns us: we need global environmental law

COVID-19 is a warning to us: our behaviour risks the destruction of the planet, and the obliteration of humankind – and we need not just international environmental law but fully enforceable global law to prevent it. Sándor Fülöp is an environmental lawyer who held the office of the first Parliamentary Commissioner for future generations in… Read more »

Australia under COVID-19: still “the lucky country”?

The disease itself may have touched Australia relatively lightly, but the wider consequences have hit the young particularly hard, especially in employment. Danielle Wood and Owain Emslie, CEO and Senior Associate respectively at the Grattan Institute in Melbourne, reveal the facts and figures, and the broader patterns that underlie them.

Education post-COVID – a life or death decision?

COVID-19 has placed education at high risk around the world. In Wales, the way forward is guided by Well-being of Future Generations Act of 2015. Jane Davidson, Pro Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at University of Wales Trinity Saint David, was a leading architect of that groundbreaking legislation when, from 2007 to 2011, she was Minister for Environment,… Read more »

Fairy tales and reality: making sense of COVID-19 in Italy

Children in Italy have had a baffling time in the topsy-turvy world of COVID-19. How are they going to cope with the new normal, and what echoes of it will reverberate in the long-term future? Martin Solly, professor at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society at the University of Turin, envisages the pandemic through… Read more »