We
are all in a race, a race to earn more name, fame, power, money, etc. to
fulfill our futile desires, forgetting the price to be paid. We worked hard
without caring for the earth and even sometimes ourselves. Some of us even
don’t have time in our lives to see the beauty of nature and beauty within us.
We think there are many things important in our life to ease our lifestyle and
without those, it is difficult to survive. But the covid-19 lockdown shows us
it is not necessary, there are only a few quintessential things in our life. These things are food, clothes and shelter, which are provided by nature since the
evolution of human beings. Rest is just our desires on which we can have controls.
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| Fig.1 Global CO2 Emissions (Source: Wikimedia) |
But unfortunately, the earth has suffered from our greed for the sake of
human development. We have seen the development of industries, transportation,
facilities, etc. at the cost of the environment.
Surprisingly, as we see in the figure 1. of the global Carbon Dioxide emission pie
chart, the impact of the covid-19 is mostly to those countries, which have more
CO2 emission. Indeed, the covid-19 outbreak is not good for humankind but if we
want to see the positive part of it, china’s sky got clear,
Venice of Italy can see Dolphin around it, etc. Don’t take nature as granted;
if it explodes it’s not in the control of any other power.
Many
people talk about environmental protection, but still they can’t stop unnecessary
exploitation of it. Swedish
young climate activist Greta Thunberg tries
to convince world leaders to act against it but still they are not
able to make a strict plan. They thought it’s tough to bring down
carbon emission in equilibrium with the economy of the world. But the covid-19 the outbreak has shown to us that it will be possible. As individual effort is needed to contain virus and mitigate its effect; same individual effort to reduce carbon emission. Similarly, another
learning from it to a world leader is that if we have to take a tough decision like
we are doing lockdown at the cost of an economy’s growth slowdown we have to abide
and stand together. As due to covid-19 all countries are facing the economy fall
down, I think it won’t be so harsh as the fall is for all the countries of the world compare to the scenario where one country makes huge economic growth(due
to high industries) and another less. Though we can’t compare covid-19 and
climate change directly as one has immediate effect and another has a gradual
effect, but we can have learning’s from it. If we fabricate such decisions in
the future for the environment then also, we will be able to regain the synchrony
which is on the verge of extinction. Learning from covid-19 outbreak, we need
to take action for the environment individually as well as harmoniously to
save our nature. It has given clues for us to understand its importance, but we
were not. In the end, it has played its card and made us lock ourselves in the
house and shown us the path. If still, we don’t care about our mother earth we
will suffer more and more. So, take a pause, learn from it and plan our future.
We
don’t need a human development index rather we need a human happiness index.
Let’s govern our desires and show our responsibility for future care. I have
the hope that we will come out of this breakdown soon and move freely again to appreciate nature’s grace.
#Disclaimer: It is not the cover of the full story of covid-19 but just my understanding and learning from it
