In the fight against coronavirus, it is disconcerting to have people barracking for the virus.

The latest cheer-leader for the epidemic is Australian model Elyse Knowles who this week described Coronavirus as “a gift” given to the planet.

“Mother Nature has proven to us all that by minimising the collective human footprint, our world can take a breath and re-set,” she told online magazine A Conscious Collection.

As of this morning, 188,437 people had died of Coronavirus. Ms Knowles didn’t say how many of her fellow citizens would need to be ‘minimised’ before Mother Nature, behaving more like a wicked step-mother, had made her point.

But presumably close to 200,000 deaths was good progress since “beaches and rivers are glistening with crystal blue water”, Ms Knowles enthused.

Who knows, if the virus offers up 300,000 human lives, Mother Nature may see her way clear to clean up the Great Barrier Reef. And imagine what Gaia might do for half a million lives! The possibilities really do become quite exciting! 

Ms Knowles, a Myer ambassador when the store is not in lockdown to allow Mother Nature to take a breath, received support online including one person who wrote: “Humans are the plague of the earth and in lockdown the world is starting to slowly heal itself before we start destroying it again.” 

Did you get that? The plague is not the plague. Humans are the plague. And so that’s why they’re cheering for COVID-19.

Ms Knowles, a Byron Bay resident, continues a tradition of Australian celebrities cheering for anyone but the humans.

I remember the fuss in 2007 when singer Deni Hines learned that the marching band she was to tour Australia with would be wearing bear-skin hats. 

The “passionate vegetarian” told The Weekend Australian: “Someone was trying to tell me they have to cull the bears, and there are too many. You know what? As a vegetarian, there are too many humans and I’d love to cull them but I am not out doing it.”

I read Hines’ comments and wondered which humans she would “love to cull”.

I’m betting she didn’t have herself in mind. Presumably, that is why she chose to comment “as a vegetarian” rather than as a human. Those who complain that the world is over-populated never volunteer to be part of the solution.

An article in the environmental magazine Wild Earth went beyond calling for a human cull and actually promoted “voluntary human extinction”, a “phasing out of the human race” that would solve the planet’s problems.

The magazine article, published back in 1991, said: “If you haven’t given voluntary human extinction much thought before, the idea of a world with no people in it may seem strange. But, if you give it a chance, I think you might agree that the extinction of Homo Sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of Earth-dwelling species … phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental.”

 I love the cheerful exhortation to give voluntary extinction “a chance”. If you close your eyes and listen you can see the editorial staff holding hands and swaying together as they sing their anthem: ‘All we are saying, is give death a chance!’

Well, why not? It would be wrong to knock extinction without having at least tried it! Death is something everyone should give a go, at least once during their lifetime.

Curiously, Wild Earth continued to be published for another 13 years. When the magazine did disappear from the planet, in 2004, it wasn’t because staff had kindly phased themselves out of existence for the betterment of the planet. Evidently, they wanted other people to give voluntary extinction a chance. 

COVID-19 is only a gift to the planet if you and your loved ones don’t have it. Enthusing about the environmental pay-off of 183,000 deaths is not enlightened; it’s sick.

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