A friend of mine (who is very, very, very clever) told me recently that there are 500 novel viruses sat at the ‘species barrier’ waiting to mutate.
That has perhaps been the way for a considerable period of time but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility to imagine that this is not the last pandemic that we will see.
The suggestion that we can build a wall around ourselves, stay at home, ‘work’ from home and educate our children from home whilst keeping the virus at arm’s length until it ‘goes away’ is frankly ridiculous.
It will be there when we open the door after we’ve been in our bomb shelter.
It’s much the same though, as thinking we can exploit the planet as much as we can to buy pieces of plastic cr@p or pineapples for £1 on Christmas day or change our car every 18 months and think that there will be no price to pay in the longer term.
The arrogance of this species is extraordinary, and we have a very short view of history.
We were not the dominant species on the planet for the majority of its history and we will undoubtedly not be the dominant species for the majority of its future history, we just have a little snapshot in time.
If we'd like to make that decent for the guys that are coming after us (and I used to think that was grandchildren but now it's children) then it's long past the point where we realise we could use the excuse that we didn't know.
Blog Post Number - 2542
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