Written by What a difference a fortnight can make.
From thinking that India may have just escaped the virus to accepting that we may just be on the verge of stage 3 of the pandemic.
While in times like these it’s difficult, but we should try to have a bird’s eye view here, because this global health crisis is revealing critical vulnerabilities in humanity’s planet-spanning economic, social and technological systems.
The larger picture is painted in some dark hues, and though it’s faint to the eye now, but there is also some silver lining around the COVID-19 clouds swirling on our horizon.
Biggest lesson so far- Until we manage the connectivity with nature better- which could mean, among other changes, reducing our international travel, simplifying global supply chains and bringing some production processes closer to home, turning to renewable sources for energy– we’re likely to experience more frequent tipping events of ever-higher destructive force.
Today’s pandemic could help catalyse an urgently needed tipping event in humanity’s collective values, priorities and sense of self and community at large. It could remind us of our common fate on a crowded planet with diminishing resources and tattering natural systems.
We will not be able to address this challenge effectively if we retreat into our so-called identities and try to isolate ourselves from each other. COVID-19 is a collective problem that requires global collective action – just like climate change, which too we haven’t taken seriously yet.
As the whole of mankind waits on tenterhooks for cure and prevention solutions, we need to rebuild our collective trust- trust in nature, in each other, and ourselves.
So, I place hope in the possibility of such positive change. The COVID-19 situation is already causing a lot of human suffering. But it’s also just possible that it could put us together, on a brighter path into the future.
VikramSolar 