COVID-19 reminds Humans to rethink their role on Earth & their treatment towards Nature & Animals
Covid-19 has jolted 21st century citizens who thought they were above all and could do anything and all with technology and money. COVID-19 has forced humans to better appreciate nature and the limits humans can push nature via consumption. One disease has provided wisdom to many in such a short time. It is inspiring transformation of the 21st century thinkers to value materials produce locally, appreciate the labor of neighbors, value the small things hitherto considered unimportant & taken for granted. People are re-weighing their priorities. Lockdowns and curfews have drastically improved air pollution levels, wild animals are boldly appearing in major towns and cities, birds are singing, nature is enjoying a break without intrusions of humans. All the climate change really needed was for humans to just stay indoors and not tamper with nature! No template, no global conference, no high profile speeches was needed for Mother Nature to recover.
Nature is superior to any technology
No submarine – No guns and no artillery can wipe out covid-19 and that realization must have unnerved quite a few in the weapons industry.
The most sophisticated of nations who had hitherto boasted its superiority placing itself on a higher platform and patronizing all others are today overwhelmed to handle the health catastrophe that weak and poorer nations are handling with common sense and practical hands-on approach.
The insatiable demand for resources have resulted in 70% loss to forests. 60 billion tonnes of renewable and non-renewable resources are being extracted globally every year. The use of fertilisers, which threaten to poison entire ecosystems and wreck soil’s carbon-absorption rates, has doubled in the last 13 years.
Three-quarters of the world’s land area has been significantly altered by people, the report found, and 85 percent of the world’s wetlands have vanished since the 18th century.
Humans are only guests – animals are also part of Nature
Humans have also forgotten that they have to share nature with the other inhabitants. No constitution has given humans superior status or right to abuse and destroy what was given free to man on the condition that it must continue to be preserved for future generations too.
Animals on factory farms grow unnaturally fast because they’re selectively bred and given drugs that cause them to get bigger.
72 billion land animals and over 1.2 trillion aquatic animals are killed for food around the world every year.
The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things. Humans have caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals & half of plants. Plant represent 82% of all living matter – 7,500 times more than humans, bacteria represents 13% & Creatures (insects, fungi, fish, animals) are just 5% of which humans are 0.01% (Weizmann Institute of Science).
Farmed poultry today makes up 70% of all birds on the planet, with just 30% being wild. 60% of all mammals on Earth are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human and just 4% are wild animals. Of all the mammals on Earth, 96% are livestock and humans, only 4% are wild mammals. About half the Earth’s animals are thought to have been lost in the last 50 years.
Are humans giving back what they are taking? https://youtu.be/7hgbbDbL1Ug
The decline of wild bees and other insects that help pollinate fruits and vegetables is putting up to $577 billion in annual crop production at risk.
In Indonesia, the replacement of rain forest with palm oil plantations has ravaged the habitat of critically endangered orangutans and Sumatran tigers. In Mozambique, ivory poachers helped kill off nearly 7,000 elephants between 2009 and 2011 alone.
When everything has a price tagged to it – where is the price for humanity?
“We need to change the way we think about what a good life is, we need to change the social narrative that puts an emphasis on a good life depending on a high consumption and quick disposal,” said Sandra Diaz, one of the report’s co-chairs of IPBES
https://ipbes.net/news/Media-Release-Global-Assessment
Using animals as entertainment
Animals are taken away from their natural habitat, separated from their families, confined to cages and made to engage in unnatural behavior for human amusement in zoos, circuses often beating animals during training. Some animals are injected with cocaine and illegal drugs. Animals are even trained to fight and even kill each other – dog fighting, cockfighting etc. Other forms of deplorable sport is the bull-fighting where after the sport is over the bull is killed and eaten.
Animals as experiments & for products
Every year worldwide, 115 million animals are used in experiments.
The majority of antibiotics worldwide are fed to farm animals.
200,000 animals suffer and die just for cosmetics every year around the world. https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-experimentation/cosmetic-household-products-animal-testing/
On top of all these cruelties humans are even forcing animals to have sex with them (dogs, horses, cows,
Horrendous treatment of animals by humans in factory farms
https://www.facebook.com/mercyforanimals/videos/223120525796823/
COVID-19 & KARMA
COVID-19 was thought to have come from a live animal market where animals are often sold as food in Wuhan, China in December 2019. SARS, MERS, BIRD FLU, SWINEFLU, EBOLA and H1N1 were also caused from animals to humans.
COVID-19 has certainly made people re-think their eating habits.
https://sentientmedia.org/ominous-links-between-covid-19-and-industrial-animal-farming/
Time to Reflect …. video from India
Posted by Kalinga Seneviratne on Monday, April 27, 2020
One hundred U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors have tested positive for the coronavirus
Animals can care too
Just look how lovable even the most dangerous of animals are when shown compassion and affection
https://www.facebook.com/gabriella.desimone.75/videos/10222897406649957/
When this ape was given his freedom, just look at the appreciation he shows before starting his new journey
https://www.facebook.com/buddhaputhun.lk/videos/835219973641349/
The harmony when animals and humans live together can be seen in this clip when a pregnant cow is saved from a slaughter house
https://www.facebook.com/100000520094731/videos/2952933521400622/
Animals reclaiming their place
As a result of lockdowns and curfews with humans now virtually caged in their homes, we are seeing a reversal in roles with animals coming out and enjoying their new found freedoms
https://www.facebook.com/Roshjin/videos/10157711364239145/
Some cartoons are even mocking at people now caged in their homes!
Covid-19 lockdown in Sri Lanka
The animals are roaming freely
This on Southern Expressway Galle closer to Matara stretch. Early morning best time for so many peacocks, hens.
Posted by Samantha Weeramanthri on Sunday, April 19, 2020
near Horton Plains
In Rajagiriya
Even Galle Face Green is Green again
Sri Lanka – Going back to our roots – Appreciating the simplicities of life.
Let’s preserve Sri Lanka’s scenic beauty
Mother Nature is healing itself
Even the ozone layer has healed without an international conference, no governmental interventions, no NGO presence, no pundits, no special rapporteurs – on its own, without human interventions and interference, the Earth has healed. https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/science-and-future/earth-finally-fixed-largest-ozone-layer-hole-above-arctic-healing-1-million-square-km-511794.html?fbclid=IwAR0xXXvmN-I5Z1uJAmUVLj0aDzmrPgZsSrSlvtVA6lYAMhK4UjTHGk5GjHs
Going forward what governments and national policy makers and even the so-called economic experts and business gurus must admit is that their neoliberal capitalism and industrial development programs and livelihood initiatives have no complimented nature. A new thinking, a new mindset and complete restructuring of ways and systems is now needed.
With the lockdowns and curfews the people have come to realize that they cannot rely or depend on import of food & beverages. Crops must be grown in one’s own country to sustain in times of emergency. To do that, countries must protect their soil and ecosystems. The transition in thinking and adoption of policies and even to expect outcomes, will take some time but the people know that it is a far better risk than what they have had to now face. With the high-profile entities failing to delivery, many homes have had to take comfort in the small vendors bringing affordable vegetables to their doorstep. It’s a new and lucrative business for a new segment of entrepreneurs.
The pandemics that nature has delivered have to be taken as a form of karmic punishment to remind humans of their place on this earth not as master but only as a guest alongside other animals. In harming animals, we have been shocked into realizing that we can too, be harmed in return.
Humans must now learn to live in harmony with the rest of the inhabitants instead of trying to be its master.
Shenali D Waduge
