The Narwhal - OpEd
March 17, 2020
There are moments in life that are etched into our collective consciousness forever. When the planes struck the World Trade Center. When Princess Diana was killed in a car crash. When the world ground to a halt to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
It’s during moments like these that we often shift how we think about the world — and about our place in it.
It’s easy to feel invincible in a modern society in which we live longer than ever before, never have to see where our food comes from and can point a phone at the sky and have it tell us what constellation we’re looking at.
And yet, despite all of the technological advancements of the last century, we are still rendered powerless to nature — to hurricanes, floods, fires, earthquakes and, yes, viruses.
The story of COVID-19 is, at its core, a story of humanity’s ever-encroaching relationship with all other living things on this planet.