human

action

Once it finds a host, it does a great deal of harm. Nothing personal. But it just wants to thrive and replicate.

It might kill its host, or be defeated by it in a battle for survival of the fittest. The host, if it loses, might not die immediately, allowing for viral replication and passage of the virus to another host, in which there will be incubation, and another battle. Incubation is a crucial factor in our current pandemic.

The COVID-19 virus has an incubation period measured in days, while its host can travel anywhere in the world within hours. The speed of air travel transfer exceeds that of COVID-19 incubation, and the virus slips by undetected until the transfer is complete.

The virus is thus enabled by human action, a noteworthy factor which is also enabling climate change. An impersonal virus, impersonal laws driving weather, produce dire results by means of our participation.

Our current pandemic will cause fewer deaths than the climate catastrophe, if that continues unchecked.

Coping with the virus, for which we have no vaccine or cure, requires that we spread ourselves out, thus slowing its spread. Inessential activities are being curtailed. Businesses are closing, people are being told to stay home, to avoid gatherings, to avoid air travel. Once crowded venues are now eerily devoid of people. The stock market is in free-fall.

Less sudden and universal are the results being noticed due to climate change. Here in Santa Clara we do not see icebergs tumbling out to sea. So far we've not had problems associated with the rise in sea level. However, we had no rain for the month of February. Last year we got only smoke from the massive forest fires to our north. Now we are being told there is no longer a “fire season.” We do get the news from Australia.

I know at least one person who sees a bright side to the pandemic. “It will eliminate the weaklings. We will emerge stronger in the long run.” The results, as with the weather, come down differently in various places. I hear others saying, “We're all in this together.” One clear result is there are fewer fossil fueled vehicles on the road, less emissions contributing to a hotter planet. Here we have a leading indicator of what's already baked into the need for remediation.

I think our supposed gains from pandemic deaths amount to speculation, considering that the world might become uninhabitable. We can avoid the worst of what lies ahead and make the best of what we're facing now by recognizing that we are all in this together. And we, in the long run, include all life on earth.