“Never let a good crisis go to waste – Winston Churchill” once said is quite important in today’s world. As our future depends on how we put the coronavirus crisis to our use and what we learn from it. Nature has given us excess things to thrive and multiply and in return, we have given exploitation and extinction of it. We human beings have destroyed everything we have touched. The UN finds that humans are damaging the environment, faster than it can recover. We are degrading nature at an unprecedented level. Where every other co-species are at danger of extinction. History has witnessed the atrocities of humans towards nature. Our industrialization has brought an enlightened era for us but at the same time, it was just the beginning of a dark one for other living beings. Our expanding cities and industrialization are destroying ecosystems, species and shrinking wildlife habitat. The reason is simply our growing greed for which we exploit them. According to a United Nations report in 2019 more than one million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction. Humans extract more than 60 billion tons from nature every year to satisfy their needs. We humans throughout history only care about our well being so we need to link the conservation of the environment to our well-being. So that we consciously and collectively conserve our ecosystem. The loss of species must be directly going to affect us.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Martin Luther King Jr.” That’s what I realized amid the lockdown, we all are interconnected to each other. If we harm other species and create an imbalance in our ecosystem, that will affect us too. Coronavirus is just a by-product of human exploitation towards nature and it’s co-species. What we do is, we disturb the ecosystem and disturb the viruses from its natural host. By default, they need a new one to thrive and often we are it. It is appropriate to say that we have unconsciously invited the catastrophic crisis and hit the reset button of nature. The 21 days lockdown imposed has cornered us which reduced human activity. The positive side of a crisis is that a drastic drop is seen in air pollution across the globe. Specifically in India, Delhi which is infamous for its Air Quality Index has seen a drop in AQI to a satisfactory level. Compared to last year 14, India has only 2 cities featured in the world ‘s most polluted cities. Even water bodies like Yamuna and Ganga which are known for worse water quality are getting cleaner, it’s estimated that there is a 40-50% improvement in Ganga. The wildlife inhabitants are not behind reclaiming their spaces. There have been many incidents where people saw wildlife animals roaming on city streets, they have emerged to explore the territories usually crowded by us. While we see fake news circulating on social media. The news showing clean air, water, and the short clips of animals visiting our city is true and shows us the positive side of lockdown to focus on. According to me, no one shall be caged for others to thrive. Both humans and nature can live together and have their space. Only if we humans stop the unnatural activities. We need to remind yourself that earth is home to many other animals and we just share it with them.
“You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself. Nelson Mandela”. This signifies us that the burden is on our side to conserve the environment and restore its natural beauty. Now as we witnessed the considerable improvement in surrounding amid lockdown, our lawmakers have a clear idea that it’s possible to curb pollution by implementing proper measures. Post lockdown as the industrial waste, vehicle emission will be released, these significant improvements will be no longer present. If this trend prevails, and the world fails to find solutions to balancing production and consumption. Then the environment across the globe will continue to degrade. In Spite, such destructive scenarios nature can be restored, conserved, put to our users to meet our societal goal. Nature is telling us to slow down, if the degradation continues, nature has got its way to deal with it, which would cost humans its entire civilization.