Amid coronavirus pandemic, the world observed the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day on Wednesday, April 22 and on the occasion, Pope Francis made an impassioned plea to protect the environment for human well being in the future. He warned that there will be no future for humans if they fail to protect nature which is helping them to survive.
Nature never forgives us
Pope Francis said that forgiveness is a quality that will be shown only by God, and nature will not pardon the sins committed by humans. He added that natural disasters are actually earth's reactions due to malicious human intervention in the nature.
"If we have deteriorated the Earth, the response will be very ugly. We see these natural tragedies, which are the Earth's response to our maltreatment. I think that if I ask the Lord now what he thinks about this, I don't think he would say it is a very good thing. It is we who have ruined the work of God. We have sinned against the Earth, against our neighbor and, in the end, against the creator," said Pope Francis.
Earth healing itself
However, strict lockdown measures that are imposed in various countries have helped the earth to heal itself. Air quality in several polluted cities has now improved, and rivers are now free of garbage and other industrial chemicals.
In Rome, air pollution has drastically dropped by 49 percent due to lockdown, while in the northeast United States, nitrogen dioxide pollution has gone down by 30 percent.
Italy fights coronavirus
Italy is the home to Vatican city, and the country is one of the worst affected nations due to the coronavirus outbreak. As of April 22, there are 183,957 confirmed coronavirus cases in the country, and the total number of deaths has already crossed 24,000.
The United States is leading the coronavirus chaos chart with more than 45,300 deaths and over 8,19,000 COVID-19 positive cases. As coronavirus has already mutated to more than different strains in various parts of the world, medical experts believe that it will be difficult to develop an overall cure in the coming months.
