Anthropocene

This year is different. Only this year? Because of the travel restrictions, people are experiencing a time travel. The volume of traffic on the roads is similar to that of my childhood. At the moment there are as few aircraft flying as in the mid-fifties, Lufthansa has almost its entire aircraft fleet on the ground. At the same time, we can feel our planet slowly regenerating. With our five senses we perceive: the air is cleaner, the light is clearer, the noise level lower, food tastes more intense, not only because it comes from our own stove, and we carefully grope our way into a new world. Our sixth sense is not deceptive either, we seem to find our balance again, but this time it is about balancing our ecological systems. We suspected it before but did not pay the appropriate attention to the scientists: we lived beyond our means - or more precisely, beyond the means of others as well.

 

As a result of human activities, many scientists believe that we are entering a new age of the earth following the Holocene: the Anthropocene. For 40 years, humanity has been using more natural resources than the earth can renew. Our ecological footprint is constantly growing. In view of its limited sustainability, the earth's capacity to regenerate has already been exceeded. It would currently take 1.7 earths to cover the consumption of resources. If this continues, by 2030 it will be two globes. Of course, the earth will not disappear in small pieces just because it is being used excessively. But what disappears are animal and plant species, for example, and biodiversity is reduced. The overfishing of many fish stocks, the clearing of more forest than can grow back, and the emission of more carbon dioxide than the earth can absorb or bind are also consequences and characteristics of the human hunger for resources. The problem of resource scarcity is likely to be solved by advances in nanotechnology, genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. The real fear opponent of the modern economy, however, is the ecological collapse. Both scientific progress and economic growth take place within a fragile biosphere, and if both are stimulated, the shock waves will cause ecology to falter. The importance of nature, biodiversity and functioning ecosystems for the health, prosperity, nutrition and security of humanity is undisputed. For these reasons, the overuse of the earth must come to an end.

 

For the first time since the Spanish flu a hundred years ago, the laws of nature are once again setting the pace, not political or economic interests. Population development, environmental destruction and climate change have upset the ecological balance and we are increasingly exposed to tropical diseases. People are becoming aware of their physicality and mortality. We realize that we, as biological beings, are also part of nature and share its fragility. This change in awareness is, however, necessary in order to respect the habitats of wild animals, to prohibit their trade and to limit factory farming in order to prevent zoonosis, i.e. the transmission of disease between animals and humans, as far as possible in the future. In ancient and medieval times, the three "I's", information, innovation and infection, were transferred via the Silk Road between the then known continents. In modern times, this transfer has been intensified by the global trade and travel routes by sea and air. Before the outbreak of the corona pandemic, for example, 1.8 million people were in an airplane every second, which is equivalent to the population of the German city Hamburg. If this figure is extrapolated, 4 billion people, half of the world's population, flew through the world every year – and with them, like invisible troops, countless pathogens.

 

Already Plato described nature as a letter of God to mankind. We are currently deciphering his individual lines. Hopefully we will not only draw the right conclusions from it, but as a world community we will also be able to implement them. In the 21st century, humanity faces a double challenge: it must preserve nature in all its diversity and with all its functions, while at the same time sharing the limited resources of our planet fairly among all people. In earlier crises there was always the option of restoring the status quo ante. This option will no longer exist, because the harder and longer this pandemic affects us, the sooner we will take this "warning shot of nature" seriously and change our behavior. Many people already feel robbed of their quality of life by the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, some speak of "lost time" and mean the plans that they can no longer realize now. By the time an effective vaccine is developed, probably next year, a change in awareness is likely to take place that will sharpen our sense for completely new alternatives. It takes a world to end a pandemic, but it is up to each individual to shape it sustainable.