COVID 19 AND OUR FUTUE

 

1. I predicted to my 8th grade students more than 40 years ago, that sometime in their lifetimes there would be a pandemic. (A virus would kill millions of people.) I never dreamed I would live to see it come to pass.

2. Diseases are a limiting factor on the populations of living creatures on Planet Earth  Plagues, contagious diseases have ravaged humans throughout history and this pandemic with COVID 19 is just the latest version.  It is the method  the Biosphere has of limiting the numbers of organisms in a particular place so a population  does not exceed available resources. Our current activities on the planet have led to  carbon pollution, species extinction and resources depletion leading to the warming of the planet. The Biosphere has reacted to us as a threat by unleashing this very efficient virus.

3. Those humans choosing to not get the protection of a vaccine are actually doing the planet a favor by killing off more of their own species including possibly themselves. Cold fact.

4. This virus is a very effective killer.  People most fit are more likely to survive, those that have some compromising condition such as old age or a chronic disease are most likely to die.  Darwin called this “survival of the fittest”.  It is the process the Biosphere has used since life began more than 3.8 Billion years ago. We are all experiencing a process that has been going on for ever.

5. Those people in our society who are religiously conservative, particularly Christians and Jews take the Bible literally and as result don’t accept  many ideas of science including the concept of evolution. They are overwhelming oppositional defiant  

when it comes to someone telling them what to do that is outside their belief system. Many of them believe their deity will take care of them and they will be rewarded  with eternal life when they die.

6. Conservative religion, vaccine hesitancy, Republican Party, white supremacy all in the same package.  Why?  My view is that it stems from human history.  The changes wrought  in  the last 50 years have traumatized cultures  the world over. Modern societies with high tech and world wide travel have allowed the patriarchal structures of human existence  to erode so women have moved into positions of power and authority. (U.S. Vice President Harris) If you look at the past leaders of religions, governments, companies, almost every entity that has existed since we were hunting and gathering was led by MEN. Here in the Twenty-first Century, Women are taking over the reins of power and are generally doing a better job than the men have done.  This scares the hell out of people who want the world to stay the same.

7.  I am 81 years old and have a limited time here, but i believe we are seeing a planet-wide revolution that is unstoppable. Men got us here, but women will be taking us into the future.