The historic circumstance raised by COVID-19 and the realization that it’s a circumstance affecting the entire human race puts a lot in perspective about our place in the natural world. We tend to live under the myth that this, the wisest-of-all human civilizations has risen above and transcended nature — only to be reminded that nature ultimately sets the rules on what we can or cannot do. The freedom to infect is no freedom. It is taking license on matters that nature places off bounds. Now to ponder — this crisis is just a small dress rehearsal for the far more radical demands nature will make of us as our failure to avert global warming looms ever larger.