Time to Pause: Introspecting Towards Nature #covid-19

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.

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