“The world is, in truth, a holy place.”

– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 

Today we commemorate the 50th Earth Day, with climate action as the chosen theme, as the most pressing topic for the 50th anniversary of this Day. The enormous challenge and vast opportunities of this issue is now underscored, highlighted, merged-and-centered as we continue to suffer our latest – not the first, and apparently not the last – pandemic: COVID 19.

 

Climate action demands our understanding of this our common home as a closed system with various chain reactions, some of which we are still learning about. Thus far, we know that our own massive fossil fuel consumption (including the production of plastics), used in most if not all of human industry, produces interactions that polluted our land, our waters, and our air.

 

With enforced quarantine due to the pandemic, our air is suddenly clearer, the sky is bluer, even Manila Bay has come close to resembling the beaches of Boracay. The suspension of all but the most needed transportation and manufacturing shows us an alternative we never thought to see in our lifetime.

 

Our common home also consists of life-support systems that make our world habitable. This includes not just our land, waters and air, but also the various habitats of all animal and plant life. Climate action thus includes and extends to caring for biodiversity and the natural homes of all creatures.

 

And their viruses. Studies, especially the newly emerging field of planetology, show that the destruction of non-human habitats endanger humans directly, as our society’s hunger for raw materials deforestate jungles, redirect rivers, and level mountains, destroying the habitats of wildlife. The most recent viruses including COVID 19 have been traced to animals. As these animals’ habitats disappeared, their numbers became fewer, and their viruses – sought new hosts. And found us.

 

China’s continuing incursion into the West Philippine Sea with its two new research outposts was found to have “caused severe harm to the coral reef environment and violated its obligation to preserve and protect fragile ecosystems” as early as July 12, 2016 in the ruling by the United Nations-backed arbitral tribunal in the Hague. More habitats being altered, further dangers to our ecosystem and to humans that we can not yet appreciate.

 

This pandemic teaches us many things. Included is the lesson that various ecosystems interlock. Thus all ecosystems are fragile. We can no longer take for granted our common home, as common not just to humans but all creation, including our viruses. Instead of treating it as an endless (actually, finite) and stable (actually, fragile) trove of resources merely for our use, it is way past time to recognize and treat it as our sacred treasure: a holy place, where we must:

 

Respect the laws of nature;

Respect the Laws of the Seas; and

 

Create economies that sustain all diversities of life