A spiky plant in our garden, a bit like the shape of a virus.

This virus though? I was just thinking this is like a zombie apocalypse movie- except there are no zombies (and no apocalypse)! I didn’t think the survivalists were right, and I still don’t. This is not the end of ‘Independence day’, or ‘Deep Impact’, or even ‘The Day after Tomorrow’ No president ‘hero’ is going to save the day. No bulldog like prime minister will defeat the army of viruses, its just not like that,

Blame them, if you need to, for that old cliche, of shutting the door after the horse has bolted. All of us, the whole world, is affected by this. But there are no zombie dead walking the streets, but a mass of our loved ones, gone before their time.

I hope I don’t sound flippant. I don’t want to. I DO NOT think this is the end of the world, although some people will be wishing it is. There are too many things that  can destroy this world, with bombs and bullets, starvation and lack of clean water. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think mans damage of the Earth is going away, we have had a brief respite, but that does not solve climate change.

So there you are, that is what I think the real problem is, mans inhumanity to man and our planet. Scientists are calling this era the ‘Anthropocene’ where the impact of billions of humans on the Earth is visibly changing things. Remember the hole in the ozone layer? The massive oil spills over the last century, glaciers and Ice floes melting. Oceans full of plastic, the air so polluted in some places that their populations have been in their own lock-downs to survive them.

Mankind fights wars over so many things, religion, resources, rights to water and food. There is no ‘sharing’ with the other people on the other side of the mountain. Mankind ( and womankind) would rather be selfish and keep everything for themselves. Survival of the fittest? or greediest? Maybe we can’t work together?

But we can TRY. When people say we are all in this together, they need to realise we actually are.

When I was a child, there were probably about four billion people on the Earth, I learnt a fact that if you took every person alive they would fit on the Isle of Wight. (Look it up, its a small island off the south coast of Britain, separated from the mainland by the Solent). Even now you could probably fit most of them on the island when the tide is out….

I often think that the Earth is the host and we ( the human race) are the virus or bacteria attacking it, making its glaciers run, clogging up its pores with plastic, making it cough with pollution and greenhouse gases. Its time for us all to be the good, health giving bacteria, the pro and prebiotics that add health to the world, not something that is trying to kill it off.

No doubt that when this is over there will be calls to push ahead with growth, to make up for lost time. But can we in all conscience accept that? Maybe we should choose our leaders wisely, give them the task of sorting it out? But I think it is in our own hands. We have to say something, not accept the status quo.