Covid, Nature and Us

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PRESS REVIEW - SPECIAL FEATURE - ... "remember

We will of course have many lessons to learn from this first real crisis of destiny for humanity. NewCorp Conseil's 'NewCorp Observer' offers you a regularly updated press review so that tomorrow we can remember the period we went through and try to keep a collective memory of it for our reinvention.

We propose this through three main chapters which seem to us to reflect both the discussions and debates of the moment, but which also help us to understand our situation and to try to define the lessons for another world to be reinvented.

You are invited to suggest articles or analyses that you found particularly inspiring and that you would like to share and keep in mind. Please see the contact page.

1/ To harm biodiversity is to harm humanity

If some people thought for a moment that the solution would be to eradicate poor bats and pangolins as martyrs of our own ignorance and greed, we must acknowledge the pleasant surprise of seeing, for the most part, and as soon as the crisis was revealed, a good quality of analysis highlighting the relationship between the degradation of biodiversity, and in particular the destruction of the habitat of wild species, and the spread of pathogens favourable to such pandemics affecting humans.

The link between Covid-19 and the erosion of biodiversity (much less with global warming) was made, and in a very consensual way, as if it were the revelation of a pre-conscious obviousness, like a backlash. For the first time in 20 or 30 years, Covid-19 had the "merit" of establishing a direct link between the destruction of biodiversity and human health. This link has existed for a long time, and is even expressed in a much more massive way when it comes to deaths caused by air or water pollution (the two leading causes of human mortality, and resulting from our own activities), but this boomerang effect is much more indirect and insidious than the one caused by Covid-19, which also has the singularity of affecting all countries and all social classes (which is less true of the other damage caused by the other environmental degradations and disturbances).

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2 / Nature is back (?)

Beyond the very spectacular effects (especially on air pollution) linked to the sudden and massive cessation of human activities, the incredible profusion of articles and posts on social networks also says a lot about our relationship with nature. This collective "rejoicing" over the "return of the living" (in reality less masked by the veil of our activities - and sometimes a little exaggerated) probably reflects above all our lack of living and the pleasure of this reunion. May they be lasting.

The strong occurrence of this idea that "nature is back" can undoubtedly be analysed, beyond the facts it was intended to signal, as the signal of a form of relief, of a somewhat naive satisfaction, which also said "look, nature is still here". The confinement has been much analysed from the point of view of social distancing, the lack of human relationships, the extent of this theme of the return of nature on social networks and the eagerness to reclaim parks, gardens, forests and mountains also shows how much we have missed nature. If man is a social animal, he may have forgotten that he is a social animal that cannot do without nature. Let's hope he remembers that!

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3 / What next?

While pathogens such as Covid-19 are more easily and frequently spread to humans through the massive destruction of biodiversity, the economic model that favours the forward rush of destruction of the biotope of the human species by itself has quickly become the subject of questioning and debate. This is probably the other "good news" of the crisis. The need to invent "a world after" that is different from the world before, which was responsible for this unprecedented crisis, quickly emerged as one of the major subjects of the media and social treatment of the period.

The Covid-19 acted as a proof of concept of the need to reinvent our economic model, and it reinforced and argued those who already knew this, and acted as a revelation for many others, sometimes discovering themselves to be pioneering evangelists. The convictions of some of them will perhaps evaporate as soon as the first winds of recovery blow, but we can also bet that Covid will have, for the most part, left a strong impression favourable to the need, indeed, for another world after.

Another world after already initiated by some, which will also be shaken up by the needs of a recovery on the run, which will not be done all at once in the great evening of decontamination, but whose imperious necessity, surely, will have marked points during the crisis. Of course, when it comes to restarting the factory's machine on decontamination day, we will press the same button on the same machine as yesterday, but knowing that tomorrow we will have to change it.

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