A Bug and a Bird: COVID and the State of Our Planet

A tale of two species: A virus and a canary

"We live in a time that may in the future be called The Great Dying." —David Johns, "Conservation Science Shouldn't Be All About Us"

Source: Anna Shvets, Pexels free download

The current pandemic is a warning sign about what we're doing to our one and only magnificent but wounded planet and to the homes of countless species including our own. It's clear to anyone who pays any attention that things are very bad and likely to get worse before they get better. Those who somehow deny what is happening are ignoring solid science, common sense, and reality.

This morning two essays about the dire state of our planet crossed my computer screen and in my humble opinion, they are must-reads for everyone. They're easy to read and nicely lay out what's happening and how things need to change in an era many call the Anthropocene, or "the age of humanity." In fact, the Anthropocene is anything but, and I call it "the rage of inhumanity."¹

Our planet, our palettes, and our plates

The heading for this section came from a talk I heard by Colorado's First Gentleman, Marlon Reis, with whom I work closely on Colorado's Governor's Coalition for Animal Protection (GCAP). The minute I heard the phrase "our planet, our palettes, and our plates," I knew that it captured much of the rampant and wanton destruction for which we are directly responsible, whether we recognize it or not. And, of course, we can add our bodies and the clothes we choose to wear and other human activities that rob the planet of its resources, sentient, non-sentient, alive, or not. It's really a matter of who not what we are harming, killing, eating, wearing, and into whose lives we freely trespass. The global disregard for the lives of other animals, sentient or not, is driving not only the current pandemic but also the destruction of a place we all like to call home.

The two essays that caught my eye, both of which are available online, are "Covid-19 Is a Desperate Cry From the Suffering Natural World" by Margaret Renkl with the apt subtitle, "If this pandemic has taught us anything it’s that we cannot escape the world we have shaped" and "Ecocide: Should killing nature be a crime?" by Sophie Yeo, subtitled "From the Pope to Greta Thunberg, there are growing calls for the crime of “ecocide” to be recognised in international criminal law—but could such a law ever work?" The first appeared in the New York Times and the second was published by the BBC. It's great and important to see mainstream media getting involved in such overt ways.

Here are a few snippets from these two essays. Ms. Renkl begins, "It was the photo of the mink in Denmark, soon to be slaughtered, that hit me the hardest. In it, the animals peer from their cages with open curiosity, ears pricked forward, clever fingers grasping the wire of the cage doors as they study their surroundings. They are clearly trying to figure out what is happening." She goes on to write, "It’s a heart-wrenching story of mass slaughter and mass graves." It is indeed, and so too is the industrial food machine that is responsible for the unimaginable pain, suffering, and death of trillions of nonhumans and incessant and widespread harm to humans.

Numerous people know about the fate of the mink and other animals elsewhere who are served up to clothe people who needlessly like to wrap themselves in their skins "in the name of fashion." Ms. Renkl's stressing, "The earth is paying the price for our convenience. Headlines of the last few weeks have included reports of the United States officially leaving the Paris climate agreement (followed by a record high temperature of 83 degrees Monday here in Nashville); the continuing decline of coral reefs; a devastating hurricane season; coastal plastic pollution caused by Americans; and the Trump administration’s decision to remove gray wolves from the protected species list" captures only a small part of what we are going to our planet every second of every day.² Please read this piece.

Along the same lines, Ms. Yeo begins, "Ecocide–which literally means 'killing the environment'–is an idea that seems both a highly radical and, campaigners claim, a reasonable one. The theory is that no one should go unpunished for destroying the natural world. Campaigners believe the crime should come under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, which can currently prosecute just four crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression." Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, supports Ms. Yeo's and many other's calls to make ecocide a punishable crime.

Whether or not ecocide becomes a punishable crime, Ms. Yeo raises most of the important issues and ends, "Whether or not the process happens so quickly, or if it even happens at all, ecocide has proved to be a powerful idea. It has crystallised a concept that often gets lost in discussions of policy and technology: that many see that there is a moral red line when it comes to destroying the environment. And it is a reminder that it is not a victimless act: when forests burn and oceans rise, humans are suffering around the world. Moreover, the perpetrators of these acts are not blameless." Please read this piece.

The horrific pandemic is the canary in the coal mine: Enough is enough

I know many people are struggling just to make it from day to day, but I hope they will try to take the time to read these two essays. The horrific pandemic is the canary in the coal mine for planetary suffering and those who can make positive differences need to do all they can to change our intrusive, destructive, and lethal ways.

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The flip side of what's happening during the pandemic is that various nonhumans are making their way into our homes, which were formerly theirs. As animals come to town in the Anthropause when we're not out and about, changes occur for them and for us. The word "anthropause" was coined in an essay by Dr. Christian Rutz and his colleagues called "COVID-19 lockdown allows researchers to quantify the effects of human activity on wildlife." This seminal piece is available for free online and is well worth reading.³

A red fox at the door of my mountain home.

Source: Marc Bekoff

When all is said and done, and far too often more is said than done, we need to change our ways and we need to change them fast. It's difficult to imagine that Earth can tolerate much more abuse and we need a paradigm shift so that we remove ourselves from being the centers of attention as we continue to move into a very challenging future.

Our children and theirs surely deserve better and a mantra that's worth repeating over and over is, "It's not all about us."

Let's hope that more and more people come to the forefront and work hard to make things better as the world is being ravaged by this on-going pandemic. It's killing numerous people along with the souls of survivors. Conservation psychologists and those who follow the basic tenets of compassionate conservation—including that the life of every single individual matters—surely can play a major role in personal transformative changes as we "rewild" our hearts and reconnect and feel the pain for which we are directly responsible.⁴ It's perfectly okay to be openly compassionate and emotional about what's happening, and perhaps expressing these feelings and acting on them will be contagious and others will join in.

As we mask-up, I hope that anyone who can do something will do whatever they can to reverse an increasing rapid downward spiral. Time isn't on our side, but I still—for whatever reasons—remain a hopeful optimist. I know so many people who are working hard to right the countless wrongs and they keep me going. Despite their inspiration, I must admit that from time to time, I feel cracks in the armor and I don't like when they surface. So, I keep on going because enough is enough and there really aren't any choices other than to do all we can to save our planet, ourselves, all of Earth's other residents, and all diverse, magnificent, and fragile ecosystems. Just today I saw an essay called "Trump officials rush to auction off rights to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden can block it," and keep in mind that delisting of wolves. Need I say more?

The One Health initiative stresses that when we care for other animals and Earth we're also taking better care of ourselves and this may even make us more peaceful—a win-win for all. That's as good a starting place as any for moving on and changing our ways right now, not when it's "more convenient." "More convenient" means "too late."