Thanks to lockdowns across the globe, Mother Nature is healing. We must strike back before she gets too strong

 

The enemy.

OPINION BY Harold Newsbaum. 

With nations all over the world enforcing lockdowns for several months now, there is an unintended consequence that we’re only just now beginning to appreciate: with global carbon emissions down by as much as 17% and human activity such as travel and business greatly reduced, Mother Nature is healing. If we do not act, and soon, we may find her too strong to properly subdue again. We must strike back before it is too late.

The stakes have never been higher in modern history. Thanks to COVID-19, the atmosphere has been deprived of millions of tons of warming gasses that would normally snuggle the earth in a blanket of increasing coziness. Animals that have come to rely on vehicular culling of the ranks are now confused and unsettled by the lack of impacts on highways. Marine life has had to do without cruise lines dumping waste, trash, and vomit from intoxicated retirees for months, depriving them of nutrition (probably). In short, the wrath of nature will soon be upon us. It’s either us or her.

Imagine what a healthy, vibrant, and pissed off Mother Nature can marshal against us. Wild boars are already roaming the streets of German towns. Bears the size of pickup trucks are knocking on doors of alpine suburbs. You think the appearance of murder hornets in North America recently was a coincidence? No, you naïve fool. It was a warning shot. It was Dame Nature letting us know that she could have killed us if she wanted to. But for the moment she wants to watch us squirm. Well, we can’t take this lying down.

Artist rendition of Mother Nature and definitely not Billy the Kid played by Emilio Estevez in 1988's Young Guns (20th Century Fox).

This is not the time for half measures, and the United States cannot do this alone. We must go before the United Nations and lead the charge against a healing but still enfeebled planet. We’ll find allies there. Definitely China, anyway. What’s their alternative? Watch developing nations be able to grow their own food, without so much as a care that climate change is going to decimate their way of life? What will the UN do with all those peacekeepers then? No. It’s time to burn all the coal we can dig, dump all the plastics we can find. Take the car everywhere, whether on a multi-state cross-country tour or just to the end of the driveway to check your mail. 

Let’s face it: as a race, most humans didn’t do so well responding to a pandemic. But we sure as heck can unite and make sure Mother Nature knows that while we’ve been bruised, we won’t back down without a fight. We must show Mother Nature who’s boss.