Covid and the Climate Crisis

With shelter-in-place policies being enacted all over the world, we are starting to see an environmental impact that seems to be a reversal of decades of human-induced damage. The now-thriving planet may resemble a silver lining in an otherwise catastrophic time, but the positive effects of Covid-19 are only appearing temporarily as they accompany a halt in our “normal” lives. Because the thriving environment highlights exactly what we as the human species are doing to so devastatingly contaminate Earth, it is imperative that we take into consideration the now apparent and direct correlation between modern industrialism and the state of the environment, then effectively implement more environmentally friendly systems.

The reappearances of the blue sky in New Delhi or the dolphins and clear canals in Italy do not warrant celebratory praise by any means. We are merely seeing a glimpse of the world that is slightly less demolished by the parasite that is humankind. Remember that there should be a blue sky, there should be dolphins in rivers, and there should be clear water. It’s not an anomaly or phenomenon. The difference is that now it is almost explicitly laid out that our pre-Covid habits were major problems that demand resolve. Even politicians like Donald Trump cannot pretend to ignore that the consumerism, industrialism-driven economy, one that he claims to have cultivated, is a culprit.

The fallout of the coronavirus will be temporary, lasting maybe a few years, but climate change poses much higher and permanent damages. The coronavirus has been and still is an utter tragedy. Some countries’ and political administrations’ inability to effectively manage the pandemic has led the world to spiral into a disastrous state, laden with economic disaster and immeasurable loss of human lives. But what we as a society must understand is that climate change will take a much higher toll. Rising sea levels and extreme storms will bring an entirely different magnitude of calamity. Besides surpassing the current unemployment rate, climate change will also contaminate water sources, cause massive fires, decrease food production (famine and malnutrition), and submerge cities and communities (London, Bangkok, Mumbai, Shanghai, New York, Florida, the San Francisco Bay Area, etc.)

The world’s economic response to the pandemic will determine the outcome of the climate crisis over the next several decades. As nations struggle to rebuild their economies post-coronavirus, they have the ability to shape a more environmentally friendly society or continue down the path we have been on - barrelling towards the visibly catastrophic horizon. Fortunately, we are already starting to see changes within the workforce that will be immensely beneficial to the environment. Whether or not these reforms will last the test of time is unknown, but allowing employees to forego carbon-emitting commutes (and other such developments) will undoubtedly delay the looming disaster that is climate change. The mistake we cannot afford to make, but is all too likely to happen anyway, is rushing to recover our consumption-driven, fossil-fuel hungry world. 

The coronavirus offers an economic and cultural clean slate that we will likely not see again in the final decades before climate change takes its full effect. Given that industrialism is such a large contributor to the climate crisis, it is imperative that we take full advantage of this opportunity.