OPINION | Live with or against nature?

Since the worldwide spread of covid-19, in many countries there has been a “rediscovery” of the wonders of nature, hidden — many times — by environmental pollution. Perhaps the most striking example is the possibility of once again sighting the Himalayas, seen from India more than 150 km away.

Editor's Note:  Pedro Brieger is an Argentine journalist and sociologist, author of several books on international issues and collaborator in publications from different countries. He is a professor of sociology at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). Director of NODAL, a portal dedicated exclusively to news from Latin America and the Caribbean. He is currently a TV columnist for the Argentine channel C5N and on the program "En la Frontera" on PúblicoTV (Spain) and on radio programs for the Argentine radio stations Radio10, La Red, La Tribu and LT9-Santa Fe. Throughout his career, Brieger won important awards for his informative work on Argentine radio and television. The opinions expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author. See more opinion articles in CNNe.com/opinion .

(CNN Spanish) - The recent municipal elections in France showed a great advance of the different green / ecological formations that for the first time in their history have conquered several large cities with harsh criticism of how successive governments have dealt with the environment.

Given the importance of France in the international context, and that it is one of the countries that make up the select United Nations Security Council, it is possible to think that these elections will have global repercussions.

Since the worldwide spread of covid-19, in many countries there has been a “rediscovery” of the wonders of nature, hidden — many times — by environmental pollution. Perhaps the most striking example is the possibility of once again sighting the Himalayas, seen from India more than 150 km away.

The pandemic is demonstrating that the course of environmental pollution can be reversed, although, of course, by modifying behavior patterns of rampant industrialization that seems to be the only possible development model.

Until a pandemic appears and the world freezes. Planes are no longer flying the skies as before, many industries are semi-paralyzed, and noise pollution in cities has decreased dramatically. For years, voices have been raised that question the way of life of the great megalopolises - where the covid-19 rages - because people crowded and trapped by cement do not seem to have escape routes, except abandon them.

At the end of June, an editorial in the Japan Times pointed out the vulnerability of large capitals - like Tokyo - to where millions flow in search of job opportunities and that today - in the midst of a pandemic - are trapped by the difficulty of keeping their distance social in crowded means of transport, where not even a pin fits.

It is a no-brainer to say that in large overcrowded cities it is much more difficult to keep social distance than in small cities with a population proportional to their size and it is not by chance that the concept of unlivable cities has developed, because megacities have become a real trap.

About 30 years ago, the Japanese philosopher Takeshi Umehara criticized the "western" conception of progress based on a scientific-technological modernization that separates nature from human beings and therefore its tendency to dominate, exploit and destroy it. For Umehara, people should be considered part of nature. It is remarkable to discover that their approach has many points in common with the so-called "good living" of various native peoples of the Americas that also raise harmony between people and nature.

The covid-19 pandemic is terrible, but perhaps it is an opportunity to rethink what the relationship with nature should be.

Pandemic