The occurrence of COVID–19 global pandemic has brought our world to a halt. Today it seems to us as if our fast-paced lifestyles, with all of their frequent and distant travels, countless social interactions and gatherings, and busy work schedules are a thing of the past. And while the present situation may be unsettling and semi–tragic for the majority of people, our planet has never witnessed better days. With many factories, airlines and other transport activities being suddenly shut down, the Earth has managed to restore and repair itself within a matter of few weeks. Decades worth of ruthless exploitation of natural resources humans committed on the daily bases could not prevent the nature from being reborn the moment our harmful influence was eliminated. The Indian government has reported that the tops of the Himalayas are now visible for the first time in God knows how long. Overall, air pollution has been reduced, water sources and soils are cleaner, and the population of various species in the ecosystems has increased.
Still, even with all these obvious factors indicating that humanity must commence the search for more acceptable alternatives to the standard methods of transportation and industrial production, I stand unconvinced that things will change for the better, simply because the political lobby is too strong. World economy and market come before the well-being of the people, they always have. And when the pandemic is over and the humanity “makes a great comeback”, our green planet will suffer the most. Apparently, there is no disease, no natural catastrophe that could ever make us transform our way of life for the good of the environment we depend on, but choose to take for granted and let its warnings fly over our heads. Nature’s message seems to, once again, be completely lost on us.
Lara Genter, 3.a