Spring 2020

It is the spring of 2020 and much of the world is in lockdown in an effort to control the spread of a pandemic. We are in a boat on the pond, driving posts and installing wood duck nest boxes.  The chorus frogs are singing, as are redwing blackbirds and cardinals. The goose nest on the island holds four eggs.

The stock market is crashing. Millions of businesses have been ordered closed. The roadways are restricted to essential travel. Unemployment claims are at record levels.

In the garden all 100 fall planted garlic cloves have sprouted. Their new leaves have pushed through heavy mulch and are reveling in the sun. The first crinkled leaves of rhubarb are showing.  The cover crop is putting on a burst of new growth, locking in nutrients and creating organic mass to feed the year’s vegetables.

No one knows the ultimate impact of the pandemic; how long it might last, how many will be infected, the death rate, the economic consequences. Everybody’s talking but no one knows.

On the pond there is a pair of hooded mergansers in full breeding plumage. As we watch, the hen flies into one of the old nest boxes while her mate waits patiently in the water below.  After a time she emerges. Almost certainly, she laid an egg, and we’re likely to see this same routine repeated tomorrow and for several days thereafter. It happens almost every year. But we’ve never had a merganser incubate a brood. Instead, a wood duck will enter the same box in the next week or two and also deposit an egg, and continue thereafter until satisfied with the number. Then she’ll incubate. In this way there are merganser ducklings among some wood duck broods. A species that dives for food is reared by one who dabbles, a fish eating duck is shown the ropes by one who feasts on seeds and snails. Apparently, it works.

The virus has brought the manufacturing world to a virtual standstill. Across the globe, air quality is the best in decades and improving daily.  Wastewater from industry is shut down, giving rivers a reprieve.  Travel of all kinds has been reduced.

In a matter of days, the healing power of the earth is evident. All around us, ancient processes continue, but less influenced by our presence. It begs the question: In the absence of man, what would the earth be like in 100 or 1000 years?  In all probability the wood ducks and mergansers would still be sharing nest sites, the chorus frogs would still be singing, the geese still incubating their broods. Water, air, and soil contaminants introduced by man would be largely broken down, trees would occupy much of their former range, CO2 levels would drop to less than 350ppm, animal populations would rebound.

Parts of the world did not react quickly enough to the pandemic, but yet the global reaction occurred at speeds never before witnessed.  The entire planet responded to an eminent threat. Economies shut down. Travel reduced to a crawl. People everywhere stayed home and did their part, and it was all a result of a scientific prediction that things could get bad quickly if we conducted business as usual.

Why does our reaction to a virus differ from our reaction to the threat of climate change?  The eminent threat, the evidence, the scientific consensus, is prevalent in both, but the virus, as bad as it is, doesn’t wield a fraction of the destructive potential stored in climate change. Many of the options for addressing a warming planet are fully developed and need only implementation, while a treatment or vaccine for the virus could be months or even years away.

This all exemplifies how critical a government's role is in bringing about rapid change. It takes policy mandates from the top to get the world to react. Capitalism or the inherent goodness in people doesn’t get it done, at least not quickly.

Italian Darinka Montico has produced a dramatic YouTube video where she speaks from the virus’s perspective. (View the English version here: https://youtu.be/f5on3AZWdik)
She calls it “A Letter From the Coronovirus” and she begins “Just hold up. Simply stop. Don’t move. It’s not a request this time, it’s an order. I’m here to help… We had to interrupt. You don’t get to play god… Last year, the firestorms that set the lungs of the earth on fire didn’t stop you, nor did the melting glaciers, or your sinking cities, or knowing you’re the one single cause of the sixth mass extinction... I’ll light the firestorms inside your body. I’ll flood your lungs. I’ll isolate you like a polar bear marooned on a lone raft of ice… You have to hear this.  I’m shouting for you to stop!... I’m here to help, just listen”.

Spring, 2020 and the wild garlic and greens are waiting for an invitation to the salad bowl.  Some hospitals are in dire straits, short on critical supplies and not enough beds for the sick. Seventy five percent of songbird populations have declined. The coral reefs are dying. The US could become the new epicenter for the pandemic. Worst case scenarios abound.  Everyone’s clamoring, hoping, urgently working and waiting and praying that everything returns to normal.

And then what?