It is difficult for me, personally, not to see COVID as the Earth's response to its most destructive species, and to the most destructive among that most destructive species. It seems like the virus is not just sickening and killing people but it's attacking our way of life. Our wasteful, polluting, killing, exploiting, unsustainable way of life.
And perhaps that's at the heart of the pushback. People don't want to see that the very way they live is the problem. It's not just the wet markets and the farming. It's being what the Lakota call Wašícu: takers of fat. Takers in excess. We take too much from this Earth, from its plants and animals, and from each other. But the taker wants to take more. Like the Rolling Stones song, he can't get no satisfaction. The taking gives temporary satisfaction, but like any narcotic, it just leaves you empty and dry, craving more.
But this disease has struck at the core of that lifestyle, shutting down multiple meat plants in the USA not because the meat itself is contaminated but because the workers' lives are so bereft of protection that they have been hit by clusters of the epidemic. We've seen that grocery store workers are being hit hard, too. And medical professionals. And cops.
Looking at the world, it's easy to see that the most (not all, but most) of the countries that have been hit the hardest are ones that are run by regimes that have doubled down on the "glory" of exploitation. The USA, Brazil, Italy, and China are run by governments that have turned away from the values and policies of moderation and stewardship. They've also eschewed science and expertise in favor of populism and the primacy of faith and "hunch" over data and reason. The countries that have fared better seem to be ones in which careful moderation is placed over whim. It's no coincidence that the countries with the best responses are all run by women and those with the worst are run by populist men.
How will we get out of this and get back to normal? I saw a meme today that echoed a comment I wrote the other day. I quoted Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka when he said, about the children on the tour, that they'll go back to being their terrible old selves. I said that about us. The meme said something similar. And maybe we will.
Or maybe we won't. Not because we will have a global awakening--a satori or an epiphany--but because the planet simply won't let us. The storms are worse. The droughts are worse. The pollution is worse. Well, it was until a month ago. Now that the pollution is subsiding from China to India to California to New York, the Earth is reminding us how it feels to see the stars and to breathe clean air. She is our mother, and she is giving us the chance to remember and to learn. If we take it by figuring out that we, in fact, don't need to return to the depraved lifestyle we had three months ago, we can help her heal and reap the benefits that come with it. But if we don't learn, and we don't learn to take less, live more simply, work from home, and consider the damage we cause by exploiting every living thing in our grasp, we will be punished.
Nature is trying to warn us and to teach us a lesson. If we don't learn it, we will die from the damage we cause. Our food will become poison, as it has in so many deadly outbreaks caused by zoonotic disease and by exploitive labor practices in plant agriculture. Our air will once again become hazardous and our storms will continue to grow in intensity.
There is a better way. It's to live more simply. It's putting a garden on your apartment patio, in your yard, or in the community plot. It's about walking when you don't need to drive. It's about taking the cruelty out of your diet. It's about buying less, wasting less, and taking less. And it's about life.
