Overpopulation, climate change, and Covid 19 have all altered the way we live

Sometime in March of 2020 I looked at the sky and had an epiphany. I'd never seen such immaculate, crystal clear air before. The entire world came to a halt, and it happened instantly and everywhere. And I thought to myself, "Wow, this is powerful stuff." The skies were devoid of flights, the streets were devoid of people, and there was an unnerving silence. Not a sense of impending doom, but rather that something significant had happened, or, more specifically, that we had the power to change.

Better yet would be to say, change happens when we are forced to change. When I looked at the sky that morning I knew that climate change solutions were not going to come from political arena but from biology and more precisely when we have a gun pointed at us. Covid 19 have just reminded us how powerful viruses are. Politicians and public demonstrations will not save us.

No one will willingly stop traveling because they know planes are polluting the atmosphere; most people will not stop eating meat because is bad to the environment. People will simply recycle more items, make a few painless changes, blame corporations and move on with their lives. The treat of climate change will not change anything because it happens some other place and you hear in the news while seating on your comfy couch seeping coffee. So far, climate disasters have not caused collective panic and that might be what we need to affect real change.

Viruses strike at the core of our vulnerability. They are invisible, unpredictable and they kill us all and quickly. They turn on our DNA fear button deep inside. Making us do whatever is necessary to change the course. Covid 19 have changed the world right before our eyes, exposing how vulnerable humanity is.

Let this sink in for a moment. The world population had reached 300 million by AD 1. According to the most recent UN estimates compiled by Worldometer, the world's population will be 7.9 billion by June 2021. 760 million people were born over the course of 2000 years. However, some diseases can kill us in a matter of hours. They have the ability to severely disrupt our healthcare system and carry out mass deaths before we even realise what is happening. We are more vulnerable than we realise. To make us vulnerable, we are intended to be overpopulated. Viruses, according to Thomas Robert Malthus, act as pressure valves for humans, correct?

Is this a good thing? Do we want half the world population to die so others can live in a sane world? Do we feel guilty if we think this way? Are we afraid we’ll be the ones who die? I don’t think we have to worry about any of these questions because the writing might already be on the wall. Our population unsustainability might already be pushing the viral scape valve. And mass extinction may already be on the way whether you want it or not, whether you feel guilty or not.

Even though we are destroying our atmosphere, climate change might not be what actually get us. Virus may may do the job before anything else kill us in mass numbers. Virus will not attack us, but we are the ones who will enter their world.

Viruses are not living things that jump on people. Viruses are like dead zombies that ride on opportunity and we, more and more give them opportunities to be successful, more on that later. Viruses live in pools or bio environments among some animal species. They can cause problems in these animals or not. More or less they are contained within a community. But they keep mutating in order to expand their territory. Mutation is the key to gaining other animal kingdoms.

Viruses can only gain access to other animal species by meeting two conditions 1. cracking the secret code to gain access to cell in these new animals. 2. come in contact with them by direct contact or by vectors (i.e. insect transmission). The more we come in contact with other animals the more we give chances for viruses to spread, allowing condition number two to take place. Overpopulation, modern animal farming and encroaching in wild animals habitat are promoting virus expansion with flying colors.

As we destroy and alter wild habitats, we also let out new and dangerous viruses. And by destroying green mass and biosystems and burning fossil fuels, we increase global temperatures which in turn aid the spread of viruses as heat energizes all life activity and movement on our biosphere. Heat also thaws the permafrost which contains unknown viruses. The feedback loop is in place. We are in full collision course with a big change. The present population and it’s out of control growth is 100% unsustainable.

The only way to control climate change is to have less population; this is the sad reality of our failing socio political system. Simply put, the only explanation for how we were able to reach these numbers was fossil fuel burning.

Viruses affects everyone, everywhere and bring relentless maximum penalty. Global warming is like being exposed to poison; killer viruses is like you drink the poison. They grind us to a halt. They don’t warn us we should change our lifestyle — they change our lifestyle.

It is hard to say what will kill us first; intense heat; droughts; agriculture failure or viral or bacterial pandemics. We are certainly arriving at a breaking point that could be also a paradigm shift. The interesting thing about viral pandemics is that they could provide us with a goldilocks zone.

Enough people could die in a short enough period of time causing real change to our social and political environment. Virus have the potential to cause real change as we have witnessed the effectiveness after Covid 19.

Unfortunately we are very selfish creatures and we will not change or do anything unless something is happening to us. The destruction of our environment somehow does not bring it home because it is always someone else’s back yard that is on fire. But when we see our friends and family and potentially us dying we are fully awake. And that is the biggest potential for change.