What if the Earth is an organism, humans are the Earth's coronavirus, and the coronavirus are the Earth's white blood cells trying to fight its disease and bring back Earth to a healthy state?
Two related thoughts regarding this photo and this article. (Context: sharp decline in CO2 emissions detected amid decreased human activity.)
Second thought: this phenomenon reminds me of Trophic cascade. In the Yellowstone park, the ecosystem's apex predators (wolves) were exterminated from the area. It had the following cascading effects:
1. Elks became overpopulated, overgrazing vast tracts of land and trees.
2. Fewer trees led to the decline of the songbird population.
3. Beavers lost their food source and the lumber to build their dams.
4. The lack of dams caused streams to erode, further degrading the conditions willow need to grow.
When the wolves were reintroduced, the ecosystem started to bounce back, but not fully. What if we are the elk ravaging the ecosystem and the disease is the apex predator?
Above are merely 'what ifs', reflections, explorations probably too early to think about amid the current crisis. Going back down, there is mass human suffering, death, front-liners risking their lives, the poor losing their source of income and in danger of having no food to eat. Beyond these 'what ifs', this crisis has exposed tremendous societal injustice. That in this moment, the rich are in their homes with large stocks of food, private cars to go around, and with the full ability to continue their livelihood through sufficient private internet and proper work devices. The poor, on the other hand, do not have the money to stock up on food, do not have private cars to go around, do not have public transportation available, do not have the luxury to 'work from home', do not have the security and certainty of what will happen the next day enough to think about 'what if'. While the coronavirus does not discriminate by economic status, our society's infrastructure and access to resources certainly did.
Certainly now our immediate concern is containing the virus while providing adequate support for the poor.
But when the crisis has abated, perhaps many months from now, we have two things to reflect on:
1. What do we do about the tremendous social inequality exposed by the virus
2. What is the role of humanity on this Earth? Even from a religious perspective, are we really the stewards of this Earth or have we become its disease?
Environmentally, how can we go back to being the stewards we claim that we are, so that we do not have to die for Earth to have a fighting chance of living.