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.
But there are some silver linings:
Because everything is slowing down, 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. The heavily polluted waters of the Venice Canals are now clearer, and there are reports of wildlife returning now that the gondolas are no longer floating in them. People in India can see the Himalayas for the first time in thirty years, and wildlife around the world is thriving (well, except for the scavengers that hang around fast-food places looking for crumbs).
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 Mother Nature — the 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.
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.
But there are some silver linings:
Because everything is slowing down, 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. The heavily polluted waters of the Venice Canals are now clearer, and there are reports of wildlife returning now that the gondolas are no longer floating in them. People in India can see the Himalayas for the first time in thirty years, and wildlife around the world is thriving (well, except for the scavengers that hang around fast-food places looking for crumbs).
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 Mother Nature — the 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.