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I think maybe environmentalism too.
To be fair, my friend Xerxes joins Pope Francis in declaring the opposite: that the pandemic somehow reinforces the environmentalist argument. It is nature taking revenge.
But that is not how it looks to me.
Reports say the canals of Venice now run clear; you can see the fish. They say the skies are clear above Beijing. You can see from satellites.
Xerxes says this shows how much our actions affect the Earth. I think the opposite. It seems to me this reveals our “environmental footprint” is lighter than we imagined. Turn things off for a few weeks, and nature seems to forget we were ever there.
I think of Shelley’s "Ozymandias."
Was environmentalism always an expression of hubris? Supposing we humans were in control of nature, that we could calibrate the global temperature a hundred years from now right down to a degree or two, like adjusting the thermostat in our home?
Were we arrogant in supposing nature was a maiden so fragile that she needed us to do so? Weren’t we really seeing ourselves as godlike?
The coronavirus reminds us we are arguably not the dominant species on earth. We are definitely not the top of the food chain. Microbes feast on us.
Nature also looks less lovable and benevolent than it did a year ago, doesn’t it?
The coronavirus reminds us that our best-laid plans as men gang aft agley; the epidemic caught us off-guard. Ten years ago, the experts were warning of “peak oil.” Suddenly the price of oil is less than zero. During the crisis, expert advice, expert predictions, expert models for the virus death rate, the rate of hospitalization, the rate of respirator use, have been consistently wrong.
All the computer models and charts and graphs that showed what the global temperature is going to be in 2090, much further in the future and with many more possible variables, are looking quaint and naïve now. Relics of a bygone day when things seemed much simpler. Rather like the 1950s’ confidence that science had a solution for everything.
Environmentalism was always a cheap substitute for religion. It was an amoral creed with man at the centre. A wise and merciful God might even have sent the virus to destroy it, as he did the human sacrifices of Canaan, or Ninevah, or Tyre.
To be fair, my friend Xerxes joins Pope Francis in declaring the opposite: that the pandemic somehow reinforces the environmentalist argument. It is nature taking revenge.
But that is not how it looks to me.
Reports say the canals of Venice now run clear; you can see the fish. They say the skies are clear above Beijing. You can see from satellites.
Xerxes says this shows how much our actions affect the Earth. I think the opposite. It seems to me this reveals our “environmental footprint” is lighter than we imagined. Turn things off for a few weeks, and nature seems to forget we were ever there.
I think of Shelley’s "Ozymandias."
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Was environmentalism always an expression of hubris? Supposing we humans were in control of nature, that we could calibrate the global temperature a hundred years from now right down to a degree or two, like adjusting the thermostat in our home?
Were we arrogant in supposing nature was a maiden so fragile that she needed us to do so? Weren’t we really seeing ourselves as godlike?
The coronavirus reminds us we are arguably not the dominant species on earth. We are definitely not the top of the food chain. Microbes feast on us.
Nature also looks less lovable and benevolent than it did a year ago, doesn’t it?
The coronavirus reminds us that our best-laid plans as men gang aft agley; the epidemic caught us off-guard. Ten years ago, the experts were warning of “peak oil.” Suddenly the price of oil is less than zero. During the crisis, expert advice, expert predictions, expert models for the virus death rate, the rate of hospitalization, the rate of respirator use, have been consistently wrong.
All the computer models and charts and graphs that showed what the global temperature is going to be in 2090, much further in the future and with many more possible variables, are looking quaint and naïve now. Relics of a bygone day when things seemed much simpler. Rather like the 1950s’ confidence that science had a solution for everything.
Environmentalism was always a cheap substitute for religion. It was an amoral creed with man at the centre. A wise and merciful God might even have sent the virus to destroy it, as he did the human sacrifices of Canaan, or Ninevah, or Tyre.
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