We have forgotten that we belong to the Earth. We are one animal among many. We are the smartest animals on Earth, but not the wisest. We have had little regard for the planet we live on. We have mistreated it, gutted it in our rapacious hunger for natural resources. We have desecrated it, using it as a bottomless pit for our waste. What drives this thoughtless abuse? Capitalism, especially when its excesses are not limited. Capitalism’s ledger does not count the cost of its stresses on the planet and people. It considers these as a free resource:
"capitalism's economic subsystem depends on... activities external to it, which form one of its background conditions of possibility...governance functions performed by public powers... the availability of nature as a source of productive “inputs” and a "sink" for production's waste...the capitalist economy relies on, one might say, free-rides on activities of provisioning, caregiving, and interaction that produce and maintain social bonds, although it accords them no monetized value and treats them as if they were free" —Nancy Fraser
Capitalism’s need for profit and growth without limit destroys everything in its path. It creates open wounds in the Earth as it extracts mineral wealth. Capitalism dumps waste without regard to the human and environmental cost. We are in the middle of multiple mass-extinctions yet we hardly notice. Insects no longer hit our windshields in summer. Bees and butterflies no longer flit about in our gardens. Our polar regions are melting. We have abused the Earth. Before we get to the point of our own mass-extinction, the COVID epidemic has shocked us back to reality that humanity and all living things share this planet together:
“the old Darwinian truth (the darkest of his truths, well known and persistently forgotten) that humanity is a kind of animal, inextricably connected with other animals: in origin and in descent, in sickness and in health.”
—David Quammen
We are of the Earth. We always were. COVID arose from the very life processes we share with all living things. In sickness and in health, the Earth remains our only source of life. Caring for the Earth and caring for each other are the same thing. Because of COVID, the Earth is finally getting relief from the relentless assaults we impose upon it. Areas once heavily polluted now have the best air quality in decades. This might actually be the first year that CO2 levels decline. The Earth is getting a rest it has not had since the beginning of the Industrial Age. One might consider this a Sabbath rest:
“But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord”
— Leviticus 25:4
During this time of forced rest, our social life and travels have ceased. Our buying has been reduced to essentials. Our focus is now the health and well-being of our families, especially those whom we cannot see because of distance or quarantine.
With our understanding of biology and science, we will eventually beat this pandemic. But we will not be the same. We will have a different understanding of what is important to our lives and what is not. It is my hope we will gain a new appreciation of the reality of the life we share together on this planet. May we reduce our desires to the simple things in life, things not manufactured, but each other. May we discover a new found reverence for all life that shares this planet.
