“Stay at home. Shelter in place. Instructions from public health officials globally are designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus and slow transmission rates. People sent home from work or from school to practice social distancing are spending more time with entertainment and distractions on the internet. Online travel videos and virtual tour websites are popular, including live camera images from the International Space Station that carry extraordinary, real-time images of our planet from space.
It is said that astronauts who have gone to the moon, orbited the earth or spent extended time in space return to Earth profoundly changed. The phenomenon is called the Overview Effect. Seeing the planet whole – as a living biosphere and a borderless home for all humanity – creates an altered sense of the world and everything, and everyone, here.
For individual citizens, employees of small and large businesses, and corporate and political leaders, coronavirus may induce its own kind of Overview Effect. Reacting to the pandemic forces us to examine the intensely local impacts of the virus itself but also invites us to grapple with the broad scope, scale and depth of our global networks, as well as our social, economic, environmental, political, military and technological systems.”