After 9/11, especially the following summer, I noticed (anecdotal data here) that cars with US license plates visiting Eastern Canada where I live, which used to be dominated by New York and Vermont with occasional cars from NH, Connecticut, Massachusetts or NJ, now included regular plates from farther away (PA, MI, OH, VA, KY, even Texas), implying these people were driving 15 to 30+ hours rather than flying. This died down after about a year and everyone calmed down and got back on airplanes.
It will be interesting to see what happens this time around. If the consumer, who is now working from home more or less permanently, decides to stay home in their pyjamas and bake bread, there's going to be a huge shift in the retail market, with major impacts all the way back up the supply chain to raw materials and energy. This article (click here)serves to start the discussion.
Same old, same old? Or Brave New Post-Consumer society? The impact on the bio-products world is unpredictable. Simply making traditional products, but from a renewable raw material, may not be enough.
We certainly live in interesting times.
