On March 7, 2020, I was happy that the event I co-organized with Dr. Phoebe Holdgrün of the Japanisch-Deutsches Zentrum Berlin could take place, although soon after that all travel and events in both Germany and Japan were postponed and cancelled due to the global outbreak of COVID-19.
Because of the subsequent chaos of the pandemic, I haven't had much time to process the discussions that took place that evening with fellow scholars Dr. Simone Teune, Dr. Anna Weimann, and Fridays for the Future Germany activist Asuka Kaehler. Due to illness, Fridays for the Future Japan activist Tsukamoto Yuhei had to send a video message rather than join in.
In the near future, I'd like to revisit and organize my notes from the evening. If anything, this recent health crisis -- intensified and made more deadly through increasing human contact with animal environments and the contemporary speed of global travel and capitalism -- demands that we continue to engage with the themes discussed at this event: global cooperation, the roles of science and activism, and the conditions under which we create our futures.
