{"title":"Is COVID-19 a Message from Nature?","authors":"John Weckert","doi":"10.1007/s11569-020-00370-8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Claims have been made that the current COVID-19 pandemic is a message from nature to stop exploiting the earth to the extent that we have been. While there is no direct evidence that this pandemic is a result of human actions with respect to the earth, ample evidence exists that deforestation and other environmental changes, together with climate change, do make it more likely that viruses will cross from wildlife to humans. We humans are mammals and our welfare depends on the health of the earth. We are not so different from other living creatures in this regard. It is in our interests to look after the earth, something that Indigenous Australians knew well. Mother Earth must be cared for if she is to care for us. Nature perhaps is sending us a message in the same sense that my car does if I do not maintain it. It stops functioning properly. We have to modify nature to satisfy our needs but we must be careful how we modify it.</p>","PeriodicalId":18802,"journal":{"name":"Nanoethics","volume":"14 2","pages":"129-133"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s11569-020-00370-8","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nanoethics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-020-00370-8","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2020/5/28 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
Claims have been made that the current COVID-19 pandemic is a message from nature to stop exploiting the earth to the extent that we have been. While there is no direct evidence that this pandemic is a result of human actions with respect to the earth, ample evidence exists that deforestation and other environmental changes, together with climate change, do make it more likely that viruses will cross from wildlife to humans. We humans are mammals and our welfare depends on the health of the earth. We are not so different from other living creatures in this regard. It is in our interests to look after the earth, something that Indigenous Australians knew well. Mother Earth must be cared for if she is to care for us. Nature perhaps is sending us a message in the same sense that my car does if I do not maintain it. It stops functioning properly. We have to modify nature to satisfy our needs but we must be careful how we modify it.
期刊介绍：
NanoEthics: Ethics for Technologies that Converge at the Nanoscale will focus on the philosophically and scientifically rigorous examination of the ethical and societal considerations and the public and policy concerns inherent in nanotechnology research and development. These issues include both individual and societal problems, and include individual health, wellbeing and human enhancement, human integrity and autonomy, distribution of the costs and benefits, threats to culture and tradition and to political and economic stability. Additionally there are meta-issues including the neutrality or otherwise of technology, designing technology in a value-sensitive way, and the control of scientific research.
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