1. With wide spread global isolation measures and reduction in human activity, nature has responded with noticeable changes. Satellite images of China reveal a massive reduction in air pollution from factory closures that one scientist believes will save up to 77,000 lives.
2. The waters in the canals of Venice run clear and wildlife is returning to places it hasn't been in decades.
This has led to talk about humans being a virus to the planet with COVID-19 as the vaccine. There are others who say that it is capitalism that's the virus.
This has led to talk about humans being a virus to the planet with COVID-19 as the vaccine. There are others who say that it is capitalism that's the virus.
3. My thoughts are that humans invented and perpetuate capitalism. We we also invented industrialism, racism, paternalism, classism, and many other harmful constructs of our social order. So while our existence may not be inherently harmful to the earth on its own...
4. ...our hubris and human activities in service of upholding a tenuously constructed economy certainly are.
That makes us the virus. But we don't have to be.
If anything positive comes of this pandemic, let it be that we are forced to reckon with our impact on the climate.
That makes us the virus. But we don't have to be.
If anything positive comes of this pandemic, let it be that we are forced to reckon with our impact on the climate.
5. That we are forced to realize that the laborers who drive this economy can't be forced to keep pushing the ever heavier capitalist snowball we've created up this never ending hill of "progress."
6. And that on the other side of this, we come together in the various small ways we have been. To support those in greater need. To connect through these social mediums in ways that we haven't considered before.
7. To find a way to exists that doesn't include the ultra-rich-top-10% hoarding all of the toilet pa... I mean cash, while the other 90% of the world subsists on the 15% not yet consumed by the insatiable thirst of capitalism.
8. We can and must learn to live sustainably, where human lives are valued equally and the lands that sustain us are treated as sacred. Because now we've caught a devastating glimpse off what would happen if it all collapsed...
9. The reality is this virus disproportionately affects the poor and the old. The wealthy may feel a pinch in their portfolios, but they also have the resources to isolate comfortably and pay for better health care. So let's remember that when stimulus packages are rolled out.
10. Colonialism. I can't believe I forgot colonialism.
