Mike Luckovich for March 22, 2020

It looks like after all the abuse our species has heaped on our home planet, the Earth Goddess — Mother Nature, Gaia, whatever you want to call her — is striking back.

We wouldn’t take seriously the existential threat to our species and all other life on earth, so the Earth Goddess had to strike back with a more immediate plague to demand our attention.

And it looks like she’s getting some results:

With increased hand washing, social distancing and ending the archaic custom of hand shaking, illness and deaths from a lot of other diseases will also be greatly reduced.

Because everything is slowing down, the heavily polluted waters of the Venice Canals are now clear, and fish and even dolphins are swimming in them now that the gondolas are no longer floating in them.

Large mega-cities in China like Beijing and Shanghai were famous for their thick layers of smog that were visible from space, but with factories and smoke-belching vehicles silenced, the air has suddenly become clear.

Old people who are more susceptible to complications from COVID-19 are suddenly begging young people to remember us, and the young can say to most of them, “Yeah, like you remembered us when you were destroying the environment we are going to have to live in after you’re gone?” (But do remember that some of us were remembering, calling for change, and plugging electric cars into solar panels.)

And Earth Goddess is going to show us that the Green New Deal, which our leaders said couldn’t be done when we had to scale back to protect the future generations, is suddenly possible. Now that OUR generation is faced with a deadly virus, suddenly it turns out that scaling back is possible, after all.

As the old ad used to say: “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature” — she sees right through you.

Can’t wait for that all time record breaking heat wave this summer. Should be a blast, furnace, that is.

I see the bad moon a-rising

I see trouble on the way

I see four walls a-tightening

I see bad times today

Don’t go around tonight

Well, it’s bound to take a life

There’s a bad moon on the rise

I hear pandemic all a-blowing

I know the end is no time soon

I fear E.R.s overflowing

I hear the voice of rage and ruin

Don’t go around tonight

Well, it’s bound to take a life

There’s a bad moon on the rise

All right

Hope you got your things together

Hope you are quite prepared to die

Looks like we’re in for nasty weather

One eye is taken for an eye

Well, don’t go around tonight

Well, it’s bound to take a life

There’s a bad moon on the rise

Fogerty

Aw, don’t worry, it’s just a Democrat hoax, like the disease that’s shut down the friggin’ world. …Or wait, is it a superweapon that the Chinese deliberately unleashed upon themselves to make our glorious leader God Emperor Donald look incompetent? The story from the Out House keeps changing, it’s hard to keep current.

Side note: I see Sen. Inhofe of snowball infamy has been caught doin’ a li’l sell-off while Donny was telling everyone the coronavirus was a big nothing. Just a coincidence, of course! …Please remember this whenever the lapdogs are yip-yip-yipping about how Democrats are so corrupt.

“Oh, you know CV19? Cool. We know each other from work,” says Death.

Mother Nature always bats last.

“No, I just sent him ahead as a convenient distraction.”

“Hallelujah! I’ve only got the syph!”

Well.. if the climate change folk are right.. this slowdown should lower the risk considerable. And for what it’s worth.. is just a small portion of what would be required to achieve a real and continuous effect.

Saw this on Politico, a collection of essays on what our future could be like if we learn from the pandemic.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/19/coronavirus-effect-economy-life-society-analysis-covid-135579

Covid-19.

AIEEEEE!!

Mass extinctions, rising sea level, CO2 at record levels, wholesale poisoning of the environment, worldwide fires.

Meh.

Nature is starting to clean up a little, there is less air pollution from China and Northern Italy. The canals in Venice are clear and the fish and swans have returned.

I don’t expect to live forever and I know Earth will not also but it might die a little earlier than I thought.

And just like Covid-19, if ignored it will just “miraculously” go away. /s

If the ORANGE SWAMP PARASITE loses the fight against COVID-19 fight, he’ll try to take credit for stopping climate change. Of course, it won’t matter. ) < : |

The glass is half full!

Well, Death or the Deluge? Hmmmm. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. “It’s alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)”—Bob Dylan

As the old oil-change commercial used to say, “You can pay me today, or you can pay me tomoro!”

Mike Luckovich: Thank you for a most intelligent cartoon.