COVID-19 reminds Humans to rethink their role on Earth & their treatment towards Nature & Animals
Posted on April 26th, 2020
Covid-19 has jolted 21st century citizens who thought they were above all and could do anything and all with technology and money. COVID-19 has forced humans to better appreciate nature and the limits humans can push nature via consumption. One disease has provided wisdom to many in such a short time. It is inspiring transformation of the 21st century thinkers to value materials produce locally, appreciate the labor of neighbors, value the small things hitherto considered unimportant & taken for granted. People are re-weighing their priorities. Lockdowns and curfews have drastically improved air pollution levels, wild animals are boldly appearing in major towns and cities, birds are singing, nature is enjoying a break without intrusions of humans. All the climate change really needed was for humans to just stay indoors and not tamper with nature! No template, no global conference, no high profile speeches was needed for Mother Nature to recover.
Nature is superior to any technology
No submarine – No guns and no artillery can wipe out covid-19 and that realization must have unnerved quite a few in the weapons industry.
The most sophisticated of nations who had hitherto boasted its superiority placing itself on a higher platform and patronizing all others are today overwhelmed to handle the health catastrophe that weak and poorer nations are handling with common sense and practical hands-on approach.
The insatiable demand for resources have resulted in 70% loss to forests. 60 billion tonnes of renewable and non-renewable resources are being extracted globally every year. The use of fertilisers, which threaten to poison entire ecosystems and wreck soil’s carbon-absorption rates, has doubled in the last 13 years.
Three-quarters of the world’s land area has been significantly altered by people, the report found, and 85 percent of the world’s wetlands have vanished since the 18th century.
Humans are only guests – animals are also part of Nature
Humans have also forgotten that they have to share nature with the other inhabitants. No constitution has given humans superior status or right to abuse and destroy what was given free to man on the condition that it must continue to be preserved for future generations too.
Animals on factory farms grow unnaturally fast because they’re selectively bred and given drugs that cause them to get bigger.
72 billion land animals and over 1.2 trillion aquatic animals are killed for food around the world every year.
The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things. Humans have caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals & half of plants. Plant represent 82% of all living matter – 7,500 times more than humans, bacteria represents 13% & Creatures (insects, fungi, fish, animals) are just 5% of which humans are 0.01% (Weizmann Institute of Science).
Farmed poultry today makes up 70% of all birds on the planet, with just 30% being wild. 60% of all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human and just 4% are wild animals. Of all the mammals on Earth, 96% are livestock and humans, only 4% are wild mammals. About half the Earth’s animals are thought to have been lost in the last 50 years.
Are humans giving back what they are taking? https://youtu.be/7hgbbDbL1Ug
The decline of wild bees and other insects that help pollinate fruits and vegetables is putting up to $577 billion in annual crop production at risk.
In Indonesia, the replacement of rain forest with palm oil plantations has ravaged the habitat of critically endangered orangutans and Sumatran tigers. In Mozambique, ivory poachers helped kill off nearly 7,000 elephants between 2009 and 2011 alone.
When everything has a price tagged to it – where is the price for humanity?
“We need to change the way we think about what a good life is, we need to change the social narrative that puts an emphasis on a good life depending on a high consumption and quick disposal,” said Sandra Diaz, one of the report’s co-chairs of IPBES
https://ipbes.net/news/Media-Release-Global-Assessment
Using animals as entertainment
Animals are taken away from their natural habitat, separated from their families, confined to cages and made to engage in unnatural behavior for human amusement in zoos, circuses often beating animals during training. Some animals are injected with cocaine and illegal drugs. Animals are even trained to fight and even kill each other – dog fighting, cockfighting etc. Other forms of deplorable sport is the bull-fighting where after the sport is over the bull is killed and eaten.
Animals as experiments & for products
Every year worldwide, 115 million animals are used in experiments.
The majority of antibiotics worldwide are fed to farm animals.
200,000 animals suffer and die just for cosmetics every year around the world. https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/cosmetic-household-products-animal-testing/
On top of all these cruelties humans are even forcing animals to have sex with them (dogs, horses, cows,
Horrendous treatment of animals by humans in factory farms
COVID-19 & KARMA
COVID-19 was thought to have come from a live animal market where animals are often sold as food in Wuhan, China in December 2019. SARS, MERS, BIRD FLU, SWINEFLU, EBOLA and H1N1 were also caused from animals to humans.
COVID-19 has certainly made people re-think their eating habits.
One hundred U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors have tested positive for the coronavirus
Animals can care too
Just look how lovable even the most dangerous of animals are when shown compassion and affection
When this ape was given his freedom, just look at the appreciation he shows before starting his new journey
The harmony when animals and humans live together can be seen in this clip when a pregnant cow is saved from a slaughter house
Caring for animals doesn’t cost anything
Animals reclaiming their place
As a result of lockdowns and curfews with humans now virtually caged in their homes, we are seeing a reversal in roles with animals coming out and enjoying their new found freedoms
https://www.facebook.com/Roshjin/videos/10157711364239145/
Some cartoons are even mocking at people now caged in their homes!
Covid-19 lockdown in Sri Lanka
The animals are roaming freely
Even Galle Face Green is Green again
Sri Lanka – Going back to our roots – Appreciating the simplicities of life.
Let’s preserve Sri Lanka’s scenic beauty
Mother Nature is healing itself
Even the ozone layer has healed without an international conference, no governmental interventions, no NGO presence, no pundits, no special rapporteurs – on its own, without human interventions and interference, the Earth has healed. https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/science-and-future/earth-finally-fixed-largest-ozone-layer-hole-above-arctic-healing-1-million-square-km-511794.html?fbclid=IwAR0xXXvmN-I5Z1uJAmUVLj0aDzmrPgZsSrSlvtVA6lYAMhK4UjTHGk5GjHs
Going forward what governments and national policy makers and even the so-called economic experts and business gurus must admit is that their neoliberal capitalism and industrial development programs and livelihood initiatives have no complimented nature. A new thinking, a new mindset and complete restructuring of ways and systems is now needed.
With the lockdowns and curfews the people have come to realize that they cannot rely or depend on import of food & beverages. Crops must be grown in one’s own country to sustain in times of emergency. To do that, countries must protect their soil and ecosystems. The transition in thinking and adoption of policies and even to expect outcomes, will take some time but the people know that it is a far better risk than what they have had to now face. With the high-profile entities failing to delivery, many homes have had to take comfort in the small vendors bringing affordable vegetables to their doorstep. It’s a new and lucrative business for a new segment of entrepreneurs.
The pandemics that nature has delivered have to be taken as a form of karmic punishment to remind humans of their place on this earth not as master but only as a guest alongside other animals. In harming animals, we have been shocked into realizing that we can too, be harmed in return.
Humans must now learn to live in harmony with the rest of the inhabitants instead of trying to be its master.
Shenali Waduge
April 27th, 2020 at 8:24 am
Well done Shenali!
It’s time selfish and greedy human beings in this planet (including politicians and corporations too), realise animals & plants have the rights to exist in peace and harmony as much as the humans do.
They have been destroying earth, forests and animals for decades mainly for the profits & power. Now, we all have to pay the price.
This pandemic is an eye opener (and a warning) for everyone to realise that they cannot go on raping this precious planet, because mother nature won’t tolerate it anymore.
Corona is just the beginning. The rest is to follow if we all do not get our act together soon.
April 27th, 2020 at 9:58 am
Whether this virus is sent by god or by natural selection, so far, it is so sad to note that none of the leaders world religions have come forward to say to their followers that humans need to change for the better. Stop extreme greed. Stop destroying and polluting the environment namely the air, land, sea, forests and the water ways.Stop exploiting fellow human and animals. Unless humans change for the better, bad things will continue to happen.
Religious practices such as praying, worshipping god, chanting pirith, offering flowers to Buddha, breaking coconuts and bathing deities in milk will not wipe out viruses or disease but will give comfort. If only praying could help , it would not have spread to Italy, Spain or Iran( they pray five times day).
Religion is a state of mind and one can practice in way one likes without inconveniencing believers of other faths.. The important thing is to behave like good humans. I is up to the leaders of various religions( some spread like mushrooms.) to guide their many followers..
April 27th, 2020 at 5:38 pm
Thank you Shenali. We all should get this strong message and correct our course.
Great piece of work. It would be so simple to live without electricity, smart phones, automobiles etc. Our lives are too short and we should be able to spend this short life in a simple way and preserve the goodness for the future generations too.
But is it possible to go back on our own? With our greedy nature, we cannot live without the comforts comes along with these “things”. Only nature can force us to do so. This must be one of those corrective actions by the nature.
We have to expect more and more attacks until the humans are wiped out unless we correct ourselves.
April 28th, 2020 at 3:50 pm
The Abrahamic religions that place man as the master of the world have brought about this catastrophe. Their doctrine of conquest- either religious, geopolitical or of economies and resources have gone ahead unabated destroying anything and everything in their path of destruction.
It was comical to see those who call themselves powerful lamenting not having enough face masks or other PPE to meet the threat of a virus. They have literally more aircraft carriers, warships, warplanes, tanks, missiles, rifles handguns and other destructive mechanisms than face masks. Globalization too has been found out to be just another exploitative mechanism to milk the world poor including their own poor.
Covid-19 is a good signal to the humans to take heed and make a deliberate about turn to put things back to where they naturally belong. The need of nations to be self-sufficient in their most basic of needs – food, clothing and shelter, own security and as much as possible energy requirements should become the priority!