The planet is at war with a pandemic that originated in the Hubei province of China and has currently made Europe and the United States its epicentres. It has already taken the lives of tens of thousands, while over a million have contracted it.

Rapidly, international and national lockdowns have become a global reality. The virus indiscriminately attacks everyone from all walks of life, the politically and economically privileged as well as the “common” people. The globe currently finds itself in a panicked state of mind, entirely unsure when or how this pandemic will end.

If we take a bird’s eye view of the situation, there is an important take away here. Like all natural crises, the pandemic is a consequence born out of the ignorance of humankind. This is the price we pay when we fail to take precautionary measures while also pillaging and ransacking the environment for the sake of perpetual technological advancement. The onus for this falls mainly on the shoulders of developed nations.

Humankind has forgotten that it relies on nature as it moves to pillage it in ever more innovative ways, especially since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Unmitigated population growth, limitless production of goods, scientific innovations with indeterminate effects, international trade, endless capital accumulation and consumerism have led humankind astray. We have surpassed the amount we can extract without posing a serious threat to upsetting the balance that allows living things to survive.

The cause for this is human interference in the environment beyond its safe operating capacity. As if in a war against us, nature is retaliating through disasters and crises such as pandemics.

Worse still, our insistence on technological advancement has not been limited to any one region or country and has taken over the world. There has not been any safe place against “modernity” and materialism. Through colonialism and then a combination of diplomacy and mutual interests, international trade in goods and services has taken over the world at an incredibly fast pace. In the name of trade, a monopoly on culture, morality and custom was created, subconsciously or not, to propagate the same mentality of constant technological development. Now, everyone has become a player.

There were signs that, as this worldview of excess capitalism developed, humanity should reconsider its ways. But it was too late already, and it had become taboo to assert that economic development does not necessarily entail progress for humankind and that there may be drawbacks involved.

This is not to say that scientific advancement and innovation are bad in themselves. But the uncertainty of how we are to deal with every new piece of knowledge we gain or every new gadget we discover makes it dangerous.