By Barnes Mawrie
With all the human misery and health hazards that the Corona pandemic is bringing upon humanity, comparable to a world war, yet some positive ecological outcomes are seen. It is true that human ecology has been adversely affected but the global ecology has seen a significant improvement. News reports from across the world have shown unbelievable results of the global lockdown. Satellite pictures show that the level of pollution on planet Earth has diminished considerably. It is not difficult to understand this when we consider the grounding of thousands of flights polluting the atmosphere daily, the millions of automobiles on our roads and the thousands of factories dotting the planet. Besides these, the absence of millions of tourists has put an end to littering in cities and country-sides.
Every Indian must have been surprisingly impressed by the visuals we saw on NDTV of our mega cities during these days of national lockdown. I could not believe that our city highways and byways and even market places looking so spick and span. They make us believe that it is not India because of the unusual cleanliness and orderliness. Even the river Yamuna has improved its water quality and the fishes are reappearing in many of our polluted rivers. Skylines in many of our usually polluted cities are becoming clear and blue skies are being seen. It was reported that the people of Punjab are surprised by an unusual sight of the snow-capped mountains in the neighbouring state of Himachal Pradesh, a sight which they had missed for centuries. Ecologists all over the world have confirmed that the emission of CO2 has reduced significantly in the past few months. Everyone is saying that our Planet is healing itself.
We all know that the whole planet Earth is an organism and human beings are also part of that organism. It is the characteristic of an organism that when part of it is sick, the whole organism suffers. This is amply demonstrated by the degradation of our natural environment which we have been experiencing due to increasing pollution because of human greed. Climate change for example is one proof of the whole organism suffering because of a disease caused in some part of it. It is a fact too that an organism always tries to heal itself or to correct its imbalances as far as it is possible. Many people today are inclined to believe that the present Corona Pandemic is one way (perhaps a hard way) by which the organism is healing itself. As Pope Francis has rightly said “when you slap nature, nature will slap you back.” Human beings have mistreated Mother Nature for too long, exploiting her in the most irresponsible manner and so today Nature is striking us back in the harshest manner we can think of. There are great lessons we can learn from this greatest modern tragedy, namely;
- That human beings should realize that we are part and parcel of one organism which is the Earth. Every action that we perform has a direct or indirect impact on the organism. The Earth is like a human body when one part of our body is sick even if it is our little finger, the whole body suffers. Just as we take care of every part of our body for our holistic well-being, we should also take care of the whole planet for a global well-being.
- That human beings should act more responsibly towards the organism. We need to refrain from over exploiting Mother Nature for our personal or national greed. We need to remember Gandhiji’s words “nature has enough for everyone’s need but not for anyone’s greed.” Presently, there are nations in the world like USA and China that are extremely greedy and trying to exploit the planet with impunity.
- The realization that we human beings are entirely responsible for pollution and destruction of the planet. It is time to stop being “masters” of creation but to act as “stewards” instead. Being the highest beings created by God, we have a greater responsibility to care for the Earth.
- That human beings must respect the laws of nature and that we must never upset the order in nature or else nature will strike us back with a tragedy such as the Corona pandemic. These are drastic steps that nature takes to punish human beings for their aberrations and to heal herself.
- That we human beings are capable of cutting down pollution and improving our natural environment provided we have the will to do so. The present lockdown indicates this human capacity (though it is by force that we do it today). But we believe that humans should take a cue from this and start engaging voluntarily in actions that would reduce pollution of the planet. There are many things that we can do, like using more clean energy, saving energy, avoid using non-degradable materials, reduce littering and cutting down on polluting activities.
- The Pandemic has taught us a great lesson that we as human beings can come together as one human race, putting aside our ethnic and national differences, suspending our personal agenda, and act as one body to address life threatening issues like pollution and climate change etc.
The Corona Pandemic from an ecological perspective, has been very beneficial to humanity as enumerated above. Perhaps human beings need such a harsh lesson to wake up from their complacency and irresponsibility. This global tragedy should teach us that we need to live in harmony with the rest of creation, that we need to cultivate mutual respect and mutual preservation. I hope that the lesson we learn these days would lead to necessary behavioural changes in human beings. In fact, on a humorous note, the Pandemic has taught Indians to be more hygienic and more orderly in our social life.