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Sure, you should make your own sanitizer from rubbing alcohol in some sort of suspension — aloe, or lotion — but let’s face it, most people are too lazy.
Or maybe they are scared.
On a walk, over two weeks ago, long before the Coronavirus — -Covid-19 — -was in every headline, I saw four (4) discarded plastic hand sanitizer bottles. They lay on the ground just a little over the length of two city blocks. This was out in the rural landscape, far from city crowds.
I am certain there are many more since then.
Consumption is another name for flu.
Then there are all the super consumption runs on stores. People are buying masks and bottled water faster than retailers can fill the shelves. This, despite several warnings that masks lead to false security, needless touching for face adjustment, and don’t protect much. We should save them for care providers, and for the sick.
Of course, people have safe tap water in most municipalities of the United States. They also can boil water. But “shortage” panic is spread because people think they may be vulnerable to quarantine, or containment.
No one really has a good idea of what that entails. However, surely it calls for extra bottled water, right?
Lifeline lessons are vital
On the other side of the coin, bringing commerce, trade, and markets to a halt may let Earth breathe a little. Our consumption — of everything from plastic, to bats and pangolins — is what caused this mess.
Whether this ultimately causes an imbalance in our consumptive influence is yet to be revealed.
Already oil consumption and demand for power are down, especially in China. What reels global markets also displays things we need to do.
Maybe with a slow down in cargo containers, fewer whales will be smashed under heavy ships? Maybe people will learn to do with less? Maybe people will come together and learn their own resilience? Maybe we will discover our enormous resourcefulness.
This is a test.
Maybe this test run will help us better plan for the next big crisis. We can learn from collaboration, cooperation, and compassion. We have in the past.
Ahead of us, with the climate crisis, we still will face famine, flooding, fires, extinctions, and a need to either abandon or allow, many millions of refugees that will be on their way.
This rehearsal may be harsh, but life lessons are here.
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Previously published on Medium.com
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