Climate strikes, global protests, NGOs on streets worldwide—Greta Thunberg and many before her tried to achieve it, but they couldn’t.
If anyone deserved the Climate Champion Award back then, it was the Coronavirus.
It forced countries to shut down and slow down.
It drastically cut down fossil fuel consumption.
It reduced flights—the largest damaging factor to the ozone layer.
It closed hotels, which were among the largest polluters in tourist locations.
The virus pushed families away from consumerism—malls, shopping, movies, and food courts. More importantly, it brought families together. It united communities under lockdown, with nothing else to do and nowhere to go. People discovered their neighbors and neighborhoods like never before.
This forced slowdown should have been a natural choice—a balanced approach to life—but it wasn’t.
Corona accomplished what years of preaching couldn’t. It proved that humanity could only be forced to slow down. The forces driving development never allowed balance to be achieved. Imbalance was what kept them going.
The imbalance of wealth distribution.
The imbalance of development.
The imbalance that triggered climate change.
The imbalance that caused extreme climate conditions.
Everything that developed countries and developing economies chose to ignore.
Three months of Corona-induced slowdown made a difference. It helped enormously in cooling down the Earth. With humans staying put—no polluting air travel, cruises, or business conferences—the impact was evident.
It was a time when the world could have moved back to localization after the havoc caused by globalization was balanced. But did world leaders realize it? Unlikely.
Have there been more severe lessons from nature since then? Of course. Nature continues to restore balance—whether routinely or by force.
It’s high time we humans start living within our limits as #SrishtiSewaks. Mega is not the answer; balance is.
Otherwise, another pandemic like the Coronavirus will emerge with greater frequency to restore the balance we disrupt so frequently.
