Thoughts During a Global Pandemic

Namrata Kantamneni

As I write this, it’s been over a year of this pandemic. Much of humanity has yet to receive the vaccine, a truly miraculous feat of science completed in just several months. Economies have been in a rocky state, with housing markets skyrocketing across the world and billionaires increasing their wealth by unfathomable amounts and cryptocurrency taking off to new records through social media platforms such as Reddit, all while millions are put out of work and unemployed and huge piles of food go wasted and hunger is exacerbated. 

Through this, we saw extreme wildfires, extreme hurricanes, a major election, protests for equality and protests against police brutality across the entire world, blackouts from extreme blizzards, and even riots in Washington DC. We truly live in volatile times filled with social unrest and with vibrant and fervent energy to make change. I think we are currently in another 1968, a turning point in history.  

We have had to rethink everything during this pandemic. We’ve rethought entire economic systems. We’ve rethought environmental policies. We’ve rethought gun laws. We’ve rethought affordable housing. We’ve rethought minority rights. We’ve rethought military interventions. We’ve rethought education policies for virtual learning. 

As I write about all this change, the Bollywood movie Rang De Basanti comes to mind. The movie depicts a group of (mostly) youth rediscovering their rebellious forefathers and their role in India’s independence movement to create a better country for the current generation. It is through this discovery of their forefathers that the protagonists of the film realize their own role in making a better future for their children. Aside from an amazing soundtrack (which I think everybody should listen to at least once), the movie is a reminder that change is good and makes progress toward a better future.

I think the pandemic will be our catalyst for this—a social upheaval to make the world better for our future generations. In the coming decades, our greatest battles will not be against foreign nations or with other humans. Our greatest battle will be against the rising tide of climate change: pandemics due to warmer temperatures and drought-stricken land where nothing can grow (no plant, animal, nor human) and rising sea levels submerging our greatest cities and extreme heat and cold causing regular blackouts and long dry spells causing more wildfires than ever before. 

Essentially, our greatest battle is staving off the apocalypse we have brought upon ourselves. This is not an apocalypse from supernatural causes, but from our own unending desires.

Nobody will be spared from this apocalypse, not the rich nor the poor. Some will feel it earlier and more acutely than others, but everyone will feel it eventually. This will affect food systems, animal biodiversity and extinction, access to housing, air quality, water quality, etc. 

Why will it affect everyone? Because we are all interconnected. Trade systems across entire continents are what enable me to type this sentence on a computer designed in California, manufactured in Asia, and running programs perhaps written by a software developer in Europe. The mango I am savoring currently was not grown in Ohio, where I currently am, but has been shipped from Mexico. And the cotton from the shirt I am wearing was perhaps picked from a farm in Southeast Asia. Losing the places to which we are intimately connected will undoubtedly affect us too, whether we like it or not. 

Who knows if future generations will even enjoy the pleasure of a mango? Will they know what it is like to write on a computer without blackouts? Will they know what it is like to go outside without the worry of hurricanes, floods, fires, extreme heat waves with temperatures regularly over 40℃, or extreme blizzards causing entire cities to shut down?

Isn’t it up to us to make sure the future generations get the future they deserve? At the very least, shouldn’t we strive for them to have a better future than we currently do? Isn’t that what every generation hopes for the future?

So, as I write this, I imagine what future generations will imagine of us, those of us who live through this defining moment in history. 

Will they be living on Mars as Elon Musk imagines, looking down at a barren Earth which has been stripped of its resources by humans who never figured out sustainability? 

Will they still be on Earth but fighting over the last remaining drinkable water and edible food, resorting to cannibalism because humans couldn’t figure out how to live sustainably with a limited amount of resources?

Perhaps they will still be on Earth and still trying to stave off inevitable climate change which they were able to hold at bay for a while?

Or maybe, just maybe, they will crack sustainability through a combination of technology and behavioral changes and will be living comfortably on Earth, with current issues such as overpopulation and excessive resource depletion all but a blip in the past.

But regardless of what the future holds, I know this: we are creating our future now. 

Right now. 

If anything, the pandemic has led me to realize how actions can have far reaching effects into the future. What we do now affects the future, our each and every action. 

This is the Butterfly Effect, that a single change in state in one part of a system can have far-reaching effects in another part of the system. This is part of Chaos Theory, that seemingly random events are actually not as stochastic (random) as they seem.

While Chaos Theory is often used in a mathematical sense, here I’d like to use it in a broader sense to describe our own society: we have a tendency to view the world as full of discrete, isolated, random incidents. It is difficult for us to look further into the past and future to see hidden connections. We don’t look up, down, across, straight, diagonally, back, or forward in time. Despite having immense brainpower, I like to think humans are still very shortsighted. Our drushya (Sanskrit for foresight) is limited. 

But now, we don’t have the luxury of short sightedness. Change is coming.

It’s up to us to fix our mistakes for future generations to come.