Save Ourselves and Not the Environment: A Secondary Reflection on the COVID-19

Damianus Abun

Several times I have published my research papers in the peer-reviewed international journal related to the environment. The first paper was about the environmental attitude and environmental behavior of Catholic colleges in Region I, Philippines. This paper was published in the Texila International Journal of Academic Research, Vol. 4, issue 1, 2017. The second research paper was related to the same topic. It was about the environmental attitude and environmental behavior of Senior High School Students of Divine Word Colleges in Region I, Philippines. It was published by the EPH-International Journal of education research, Vol. 1, Issue, 2, 2017. The two studies have found that most employees and students are influenced by the anthropocentric attitude in which human beings view the environment as the instrument of human pleasure or welfare. The environment is treated as an object to be used by humans. This attitude has affected their behavior toward the environment. They do not respect the natural environment and they throw garbage everywhere. They do not save energy, etc. Such an attitude affects the natural environment. The third paper that I published was about solving environmental problems is changing cultural perception toward the environment, published in the International Journal of Current Research, Vol. 10, Issue, 8, 2018. This paper is a kind of summary of the two previous papers. The paper saw the root cause of the environmental problem in the human attitude or cultural perception toward the environment. There is a need to change our attitude and cultural perception of the environment. 

I wrote these papers and published them with the hope that I can contribute ideas on how to save the environment. I believe too that many researchers out there have conducted researches in line with the natural environmental issues because of the same concern to save the environment. Readers have sent feedbacks to me that through my research, they have opened their minds to see that solving the environmental problem is a holistic approach. The positive feedback that I got emboldens me to believe that I have contributed ideas in saving the natural environment. Governments everywhere have discussed issues on natural environmental problems and have instituted legislation to protect the environment. The latest was the Paris Climate Change Agreement to convince all countries to put in place policies to protect the environment. Individual persons, NGOs, and the government are worried about how to save the environment. The ecosystem has been damaged, the climate has changed and naturally, human life continuity is in danger. This is the main concern of why people are calling for the government to curb the use of fossil fuel and go for green energy because of its negative effect on the natural environment as a whole which affects the ecosystem. People have been calling to save the future generation. Again all these efforts to protect the natural environment are motivated by the concern of human survival. If human life is not affected, probably people will not be bothered and call for the protection of the natural environment. Again human is the center of the concern. People have not learned and have not seen themselves and the natural environment as one ecosystem that is interconnected and affected one another.  

The question is: are we saving the natural environment or are we saving ourselves? Gary Pekas (2011) in his reflection contended that we are not saving the environment because the environment will take care of itself but actually what we are doing is to save ourselves. Jeffrey Shaw (2016) also had the same kind of reflection that nature will take care of itself. Before human beings occupy the planet, nature or the natural environment has been there. Animals and human beings may disappear or maybe evolved into a different form of human beings to adapt to nature but nature will be still there. No matter what humans will do to nature, nature will heal itself (Reynolds, 2010).  Reynolds contended that the earth has been going through many cases of abuse but the earth is still here. Reynolds quoted the idea of professor Laughlin, Stanford University physicist, said, “ "The geologic record suggests that climate ought not to concern us too much when we gaze into the future," he says, "not because it's unimportant but because it's beyond our power to control." “Whatever humans throw at it, in other words, Earth will fix things in its own time and way”. Taking from the ideas of Laughlin, Reynolds advises us to remain calm because nature will take care of itself. He took an example of rain. The rain has been falling since the beginning of time and yet the amount of water in the earth’s ocean has not changed significantly. Ice melting happened 15,000 years ago but the sea level rose by one centimetre a year for 10,000 years. The earth does not care what we are doing, what the government is doing, it will take care of itself.  

Based on geologic time, we would argue that climate change is not only happening in our time, it has been happening ever since. The earth has gone through dramatic changes in its history throughout its 4.5 billion histories. It has gone through climatic changes and the history of life has been influenced by these climatic changes which may alter the course of evolution. Life is a causative effect of these changes (Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Recently there is good news that the ozone layer is healing. National Geographic (n.d) defines the ozone layer as “one layer of the stratosphere, the second layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. The stratosphere is the mass of protective gases clinging to our planet”. When the ozone layer is damaged, there is no protection over the earth and nothing can survive on the planet. According to the study posted in Science Alert (2019), the ozone layer above Antarctica has recovered much, and scientists have acknowledged that this recovery is probably caused by the Montreal Protocol (1987). According to them, this could reverse some troubling changes in air currents around the Southern Hemisphere. However, many have also doubted that the healing of the ozone layer is due to the Montreal Protocol. And so Kundhu (2020) wrote in India Today that this change has nothing to do with the lock down. Despite these denials, one cannot deny that one of the biggest contributors to the ozone layer depletion is China. Because of Covid-19 and lock down, China had stopped everything, all industries are shutting down, all cars and airplanes are not moving and flying. As a result of these changes, the air above China becomes cleaner and less polluted. The water becomes clear and animals can go back to its habitat. It is not only true in China but throughout the whole world. All kinds of industries have been shutting down. It brings great impact on the healing of the ozone layer. Can we still deny that lock down had brought healing to the ozone layer? The nature through COVID-19 has healed the ozone layer. Though human denies that nature can defend and heal itself from human encroachment but the fact is that COVID-19 has shut down all human activities and because of that the environment  is getting healthier.  

Covid-19 is a zoonotic disease and therefore it comes from nature which passes from animals to humans. It is believed to be originated in bats before passing to humans. Covid-19 could be nature’s way to defend itself from damaging. Last May 14, 2020, Paula Ramon posted an article on yahoo news about Amazon that could be the next virus hot zone. She quoted David Lapola, a Brazilian ecologist, “human encroachment on animals’ habitats- a likely main culprit in coronavirus outbreak. Amazon forest is a huge reservoir of viruses”. Human encroachment toward nature has been too much and nature could not stomach it any longer. Nature has its army in the forms of viruses to protect itself and this is also true to human life. There is a natural system in our body to protect itself from anything that threatens its existence but humans have not discovered its natural system to cure itself.  

Finally, the war is ongoing between human beings and nature through COVID-19 and the losers are definitely human beings. The streets are empty, manufacturing companies are empty and all kinds of industries  are shut down and human beings are hiding inside their home. the nature slowly is healing itself, the ozone layer is healing, the air becomes clean, and the animals come back to their habitats. Nature has won the battle. Now, how do we protect ourselves to survive? Life should change and align it with nature and nature will become our friend. COVID – 19 will change our lives and the way we live. We need to live in harmony with the environment.