Nice to have Martin Joseph in concert tonight. I decided to go the whole hog and plugged in the hifi and projector – worked really well.
They built some new houses just along the street. One condition was they had to add a bat box to the end of the house nearest me. One of the conditions on getting approval to remove trees in certain areas is a bat survey. Watching the film “contagion” recently it is based on an idea that a virus spreads from bats. So if this imaginary virus really came from bats why would we protect them?
The answer seemed clear in the pre-virus days. On this small planet there is a complex inter-relationship between all of the plants and animals, and killing off one species can have a massive effect. We need to protect this planet and all the species on it.
Our relationship with nature is incredibly complex. Just imagine how hard it is for scientists to predict the spread of this virus in people. Then add in all of the other species and viruses and the potential for mutation. How amazingly complex is that – perhaps we are not so God-like in knowing the effects of our interaction with nature.
Maybe changing the eating habits in Wuhan would make a difference, or maybe not – another virus could appear some other way in some other place, maybe from pigs in the USA. I still see a semblance of the idea that we can be like Gods in our response to the virus. Maybe we need to re-learn that we are not Gods.
Rain is due this week – I am tempted to drive to a supermarket just to sit in the car to see how the outside queues behave. This will be a big challenge to lockdown, probably worse than sunny weekends. Quite fitting for Britain.