(Ten-minute read) 

AS IF WE DID NOT KNOW it is posing that fundamental profound question once more.

Are we going to care of the Earth so it can care for us?  

It is impossible to say which way the disease will go however there is no doubt that it is creating the biggest restriction of civil liberties “in peacetime”. 

We know that we all tracked by Google.  Behind all the restrictions governments will adopt powers that they will loath to relinquish when the crises are over. 

There is every like hood that the pandemic will strengthen the state and reinforce nationalism.  What won’t change is the inequality and greed, rather it will create a less open, less prosperous and less free world. 

Of course, it did not have to be like this but it will be the straw that brakes the camel’s back of globalization and it will probably result in uncontrolled Co2 emissions.

In the short term, with decoupling and rivalry coming to the forefront driven by a cascading sense of vulnerability there will be a race to return to full production.

However the Pandemic is proof of our interdependence but we are not or are we heading for a poorer, meaner, and smaller world.

If the Pandemic shocks us into recognizing our real interests in cooperating multilaterally on the big global issues facing us all it will have served a useful purpose. 

We all know that it is not enough to think of one nation’s power over another when it comes to climate change. The key is learning the importance that we have all to act together and Covid -19 is going to show that we are failing to adjust our strategy on many fronts to this new world. 

Either way, this crisis will reshuffle the international power structure in the way we can only begin to imagine. 

If we don’t support each other the result will be instability and widespread conflict within and across nations. 

We know that there is a dramatic new stage in global capitalism on the horizon with supply chains be brought closer to home.  We are going to see failed states with billions of economic refugees on the move. 

We are going to see the USA no longer as an international leader. 

To date, international collaboration has been woefully insufficient. 

What is needed it targeted assistance that provides hope that men and woman can prevail in response to this extraordinary challenge.  

If it gets Airborne the white full personal-protection suits that presently strike fear into the hearts of us all will be worthless.

AS IF EARTH DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH PROBLEMS THE NEXT NASA PROJECT TO MARS IS SCHEDULED TO LAUNCH IN JULY. 

NASA’s 2020 Mars rover. 

The rover will collect and cache promising samples for eventual return to Earth.

The first pristine pieces of Mars won’t be coming down to Earth for at least another decade, but the time to start preparing society for the epic arrival is now. 

This is an extremely grave point.

On the one hand, we can argue that Martian organisms cannot cause any serious problems to terrestrial organisms, because there has been no biological contact for 4.5 billion years between Martian and terrestrial organisms. On the other hand, we can argue equally well that terrestrial organisms have evolved no defences against potential Martian pathogens, precisely because there has been no such contact for 4.5 billion years. The chance of such an infection may be very small, but the hazards, if it occurs, are certainly very high.

Martian rock that has already arrived on earth contained structures resembled the fossilized remains of bacteria-like lifeforms.

What if such samples turned out to be dangerous, and contagiously so?

Are there some Mars-oriented lessons to be learned from COVID-19. 

Here on earth, it is gruelling and potentially lethal work to identify a virus never mind virus from other planets. 

It is estimated that there are 1.6 million unknown viruses in birds and mammals. Of these, it is thought between 600,000 and 800,000 are zoonotic, meaning they have the potential to jump from animals to people. 

Virulence, contacts and the length of time for which people are infectious are the three factors that determine what is called ‘the basic reproductive rate’ – how far and fast the epidemic will spread. 

As with historical infectious disease epidemics, the coronavirus that’s spreading currently is another example of why it’s so important to understand the consequences of interacting with environments humans rarely contact and then distributing widely whatever [they] picked up.

If one looks at the outbreak in Africa, of Ebola and the HIV/Aids pandemic – which to date has killed 35 million and infected 70 million – started about a century ago in Cameroon when a chimpanzee virus was transmitted to a human who almost certainly killed, butchered or consumed it.

Markets were closed during both outbreak, but they are now once more doing a roaring trade selling tropical game including monkeys, chimpanzees, cane rats, bats and snakes. Bushmeat is entrenched in local culture and is often a vital form of subsistence, hence why the authorities are unwilling or unable to announce an outright ban.

Last, with or without artificial intelligence we continue at our collective peril to make imbalance’s in the ecosystem.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.