Covid-19 and Earth's Real Virus

Perspective – People are Earth’s virus and Covid-19 is nature’s equalizer

(not pro-disaster, just a self-reflection post)

Eagle ray captured by local fisherman (Bohol, Philippines).  It's cousin - Manta, and other types of rays are hunted for their gills used in traditional chinese medicine resulting in thousands of ray kills every year.  Shark trade is even worse amounting to about 70 to 100 million kills a year!

Imagine – today there’s about 900 million metric tons of CO2 yearly contributed by the aviation industry adding to that +6-degree threat in global ave. temperature. And that’s only 2-3% of total CO2 global emission!

As reference, it will take a big hard wood tree 40 years to absorb 1 ton of CO2.  But 7 billion trees are cut down every year, which will leave the planet forest-free in around 5 generations!

Wildlife trade is a 20+ billion $-trade, 4^th to drugs, humans and arms trade – and covers 300 million specimens yearly!  I can’t even imagine how this is possible!

Consumer goods shipments (with the rise of consumerism) is about 300 billion worth of parcels (packaged shipped goods) or about +2,300 parcels shipped every second! Imagine the amount of fuel and resources consumed to produce and ship these products!

These are but some glaring numbers on how humanity abuse and overuse the world’s resources with its infinite demand – to satisfy its insatiable needs.

Imagine Earth’s “delight” seeing an extreme reduction of commercial flights and tourism - offering fresher air and a nice blue sky; a sudden slump on wildlife capture, shipments and trade – promoting animal population recovery if not simply giving back their freedom and peace; or hopefully – a huge reduction of parcel shipments especially those coming from ‘hot zones’ like China. Forget about Lord Vader, nature has its way in ‘bringing balance to the force’.  And this ‘NCOV’ is just a glimpse or taste of what she can do.  

Covid-19 is a real threat, and still a pandemic threat as of this writing – but behind the scare, death and statistics, Earth is celebrating and getting its well-deserved ‘healing moments’.

While it’s easy to blame traffickers, rich consumers, or China or what-nots, ALL of us contribute to Earth’s slow demise.  Covid-19 is not just a story of a virus, it’s not just about Wuhan and their love for exotic food – it’s a reflection of what we, contributors – do every day to this planet.  And we are all guilty contributors!

Typical middle-income, city-person like myself – has more environmental footprint than an entire indigenous family living in the mountains.  The car or taxi we use, the meat that we eat, the clothes that we wear – every single day, all of these have huge resource consumption impact.  And the rich and ultra-rich?

Of course, the ‘bad people’ who directly participate in wildlife trade (- suspected to be a direct contributor to the virus development in Wuhan), and the consumers (who buys or consumes wildlife products be it clothing, supplements, apparels or accessories), have more ‘blood-virus in their hands’.  

But behind the blaming and finger-pointing, let’s look at the mirror and ask ourselves – Do we deserve this?  How can we do things better?  Should we wait for a bigger ‘equalizer virus’ before we act? 

Earth is showing signs of ‘discomfort’ – the bush fire in Australia, the severe storms we see yearly, the melting permafrost in Siberia and fast-disappearing Arctic ice, the depletion of primary ocean fishes, among other things.  NCOV is perhaps just its bigger ‘messenger’ – directly disrupting global human processes. For us to rethink, for us to reconsider…

Do I really need this new clothing for the Sunday mass?

Should I buy yet another milk tea today and throw away another fossil fuel-based plastic disposable?

Should I light another cigarette, never mind if tobacco industry utilizes several million hectares that are better used for food production?

Ah, maybe I’ll order another slab of methane-contributing steak in my favorite restaurant tomorrow as I did today?  Or that ‘healthy’ farmed salmon which I ate a day ago? Never mind if 400 grams of good fishes were used to produce a mere 100 grams of it!

Tomorrow, maybe I’ll eat/ consume, wear – that delicious/ exotic, fashionable wildlife-based accessory?

I’m bored reading this, perhaps I’ll just ride my race car (ok – unrealistic) –drive my SUV to Tagaytay to do have lunch somewhere, overlooking the still-steaming Taal volcano?

We can always pretend that Covid-19 is someone else’s fault, that it will go away and that hopefully we can simply continue living our usual lives?! 

Hopefully, Covid would die out sooner never to re-appear. 

But - hopefully, we learned our lessons.  And hopefully, we will change some things.

Or if not – we can always wait for the next, and much bigger -- equalizer!