What a pandemic can say about human–environment relationship

Abstract

AbstractIn 2020, the new coronavirus disease has seen many countries adopt mitigation activities to interrupt human‐to‐human transmission, radically changing daily life habits with secondary effects on the environment. The aim of this article is to comment on these events from a systemic point of view, referring to systems theories and the non‐linear causal relation between human behaviour and the environment. As Bateson stated, linear thinking has led human beings to exploit the environment, causing an ecological crisis and disequilibrium within the system, because the mutual interrelationship and homeostasis mechanisms between humans and their environment were ignored. Taking into account the pandemic and its effects, the new coronavirus provides an opportunity to see otherwise invisible or obscured relational phenomena, such as the mutual relationship between humans and their environment.