Sustainability lessons from COVID-19

I didn't know much about Mexico before I had a chance to visit Mexico City in November 2014. I certainly didn't know Mexico had its own Pyramids before I booked a popular tour of the Teotihuacan Pyramids, about 40 kms from the Mexico City. I don't have a lot of good photos from this visit so I will post just one below:

Isn't that a marvellous site? I read that this site is ~2,000 years old. Imagine the engineering involved and how the Teotihuacanos came together to build these magnificent structures. This kind of collaboration is only possible with the human species, and, ironically, there is no human civilisation living in this place anymore.

I am writing to talk about a few things I learnt from this trip and how I was thinking of these in the current lockdown. Here are a few things I learnt from our guide that day:

• Teotihuacan Pyramids were places of worship, namely, the pyramid of the Sun and the pyramid of the Moon

• We don't know whether these are solid structures or hold secrets inside, but they are believed to be solid

• Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities of its time. It is estimated that only 30% of the city is excavated so far so the site still holds many archaeological secrets.

• The City of Teotihuacan was abandoned because the Teotihuacanos changed the surrounding ecosystem to a great extent

This last point is what brings me to the current pandemic of COVID-19. I have been to many museums around the world and seen unearthed artefacts that belonged to once great civilisations. Teotihuacan was the first time I was standing at a site where a great civilisation once flourished but vanished due to their unsustainable ways. Bottomline: The fight between humans and nature is not between two equals. Whenever human activity exceeds nature's tolerance, we lose. Period. Every living human being is currently witnessing this as a first in their lifetime.

With due respect to your personal beliefs, climate change is real. I feel that, with every passing year, we are changing the Earth for the worse. I remember when I was young, my family didn't have air-conditioning or 24-hours electric power. During the summer months, we used to lay cotton mattresses on the rooftop and simply sleep under the stars. Now the same city, Delhi, is termed as one of the most polluted cities in the world. I have not seen the stars in the night sky in years. In fact, I have developed mild allergies to the dusty air. If I breathe the outside air for more than 10 minutes, I get a sore throat and would start coughing. The highest temperature I experienced last summer was 48°C (~118°F). I don't think it used to be so hot in the good old days. It feels that the comforts of today, air-conditioning, air-purifiers, hiking vacations to unwind, etc. are solutions to the problems that we have created in the past 3 decades.

Many things have changed in the last couple of months. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, the air in Delhi is visibly cleaner, the night-sky is full of stars, the sparrow is back in the city, rare animals are spotted in the empty streets, and there is news of river Yamuna running clean. The fascinating thing is that the world did not come together to make this happen. No international agreement we signed, domestic taskforce we created, or school strike is behind these changes. This happened because Mother Nature was tired of human activity and struck back, thankfully, not vigorously.

With good news comes the greater worry. Today I came to work for the first time after 48 days. I confess that it's a slow day at work, but things are going back to normal surprisingly quicker than I expected. Soon my normal work schedule, travel plans, eating out, and watching movies would also be possible. I proudly announced on Insta that I have taken over twenty flights in 2019. Under the circumstances, 2020 may not match the same but 2021 could be even greater.

However, I secretly wish things to not go back to the old normal. I have a newfound sense of sustainability which I wish to implement in the future. For example, I spent the last ~50 days wearing the same 3 sets of clothes, playing boardgames and cards with family, learning to cook many new recipes (add bonus: I looked at the ingredients in various packaged foods I used to enjoy), and didn't travel to a new destination (and still survived). Going forward, I hope to continue with the same – shop less, spend more time with family and friends, cook more than eat out, and many more.

Travelling remains an ardent desire but it will be some time before it will be safe to travel again… and 2021 no longer needs to be the breakthrough year. Slow and steady will win the race. I will start with prioritising travelling to visit friends and family more than going to new locations. When going on vacation, I would prefer to take group tours to private tours. When driving to go outside the city, I would ask friends to accompany me rather than take separate cars.

This, friends, is the change I am carrying forward from the COVID-19 pandemic. I am far from being a crusader for planet Earth. This is my bit for myself, not for the planet. I believe when it has had enough, mother nature will strike back and heal herself. My efforts are to ensure that it's a while before that happens and I get to enjoy this beautiful planet for a long time.