COVID-19 Is a Dress Rehearsal for Climate Change
How pandemic setbacks may affect climate mitigation
I wrote a story several weeks ago about Donald Trump’s horrible COVID-19 response. The premise was that he robbed the American people of the ability to know that we can defeat not just the current pandemic but any future perilous situation. Like, oh, climate change — for instance.
Now I will dive deeper into this concept and cast aside the outgoing president to focus on the role we, the people, play.
The Price We Pay
I don’t see these two issues — climate change and COVID-19 — as much different from one another, as I’ll explain in further detail below. It may seem as though COVID-19 is the worst that life can get, and it is terrible. The death toll in the U.S. may reach an unfathomable 500,000 soon, and we can’t get vaccines in arms quick enough.
However, I am concerned about the botched COVID-19 response beyond the obvious reason: the rising death toll.
Why else would I be concerned?
Well, while it’s irrefutable that the virus is contagious and kills, there is another unspoken truth that I see in the coronavirus death toll. The U.S. public does not have a unified response. We can not agree on what it takes to stop the spread of the virus, and that causes unnecessary death.
We need only review the last two months of 2020 for proof:
“About 1 million Americans a day packed airports and planes over the weekend even as coronavirus deaths surged across the U.S. and public health experts begged people to stay home and avoid big Thanksgiving gatherings. And the crowds are only expected to grow.” (apnews.com)
The beginning of December brought the post-Thanksgiving spikes. And what did we do? We flew through the skies once again a month later:
“Pre-Christmas air travel surpassed 1 million daily passengers nationwide for three consecutive days this weekend… The 3.2 million passengers screened Friday, Saturday and Sunday mark the only time during the pandemic that over 1 million air travelers were seen three days in a row. The influx in air travel undercuts health officials’ guidance for Americans to stay home this holiday season.” (washingtonpost.com)
So here is the issue. The U.S. public was warned and asked to make sacrifices and modify our lifestyles to ensure safety.
Based on the daily death toll numbers after the December holiday season, I believe we failed. Not enough of us listened and made the appropriate sacrifices.
And now we are paying the price.
Vaccine Cure-All?
People continue to envision a time when we will “get back to normal.” Many of those same people point to the coronavirus vaccine as the answer. However, this vaccine is not a magic cure-all. It has its limitations and issues.
There is good news, though. The eventual hope is that the COVID-19 vaccine will allow us to reach herd immunity. Then we can finally breathe a sigh of relief as our lives return to normal.
But, will they return to normal?
We still have many more pressing issues that have been eclipsed by the urgency of this virus. One of those issues is climate change, for which there is no vaccine as an answer.
Why do I keep bringing up climate change when referencing COVID-19? Because I see more similarities between this pandemic and climate change than I see differences. And that’s terrifying, based on how poorly my country is faring in the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s what I mean.
Similarities Between the COVID-19 Pandemic and Climate Change
- Global: COVID-19 is a global issue with the potential to affect every human around the world. So, too, is climate change.
- Universality: Defeating COVID-19 requires a unified response with each country participating in the effort. Same with climate change.
- Empathy: Defeating COVID-19 requires that people look outside of themselves and care about others who may be in a worse position than they are. So, too, with climate change.
- Sacrifices: Defeating COVID-19 requires that people adjust their lifestyles and modify their behaviors — at least for a limited time during vaccine distribution. Climate change requires the same: drastic lifestyle and behavior changes to mitigate climate disaster. We cannot keep living the same ways we have lived and expect different carbon emissions results.
- Misinformation: People still believe COVID-19 is fake. This belief tremendously slows the progress of defeating this virus. People, perhaps some of those same people, still believe climate change is make-believe too. For some, no amount of evidence allows them to swap their delusions for reality. They are not listening to scientists who study these respective areas.
Differences Between the COVID-19 Pandemic and Climate Change
There is only one main difference that I can discern. And, unfortunately, it’s not a difference that bodes well for climate change. (This is besides the obvious difference that one is a virus and another is a climate response based on carbon emissions.)
- Unchartered territory: Humans have experience dealing with viruses and have lived through many pandemics and plagues before. But we have no record of living through a climate crisis of the sort we face now. <gulp>
To elaborate, COVID-19 is akin to other viruses and pandemics humans have experienced before. Scientists know what to do from what worked in previous times: protect with masks, socially distance, isolate cases, contact trace, keep infected people away from uninfected people. We already know what will happen if we do or don’t follow those protocols.
Climate change is an unknown issue, in that humans don’t have experience dealing with it yet.
Let me revise that statement to be the most accurate: no modern humans faced climate change like they faced previous pandemics in history. And, our ancestors never faced a global warming climate disaster. Although, they did survive a cooling climate around 11,000 years ago.
Climate scientists can make predictions about our future. However, they don’t have the historical experience that epidemiologists and virologists have with pandemics. Ultimately, climate scientists don’t know what will happen to us or our planet. Or how quickly something could happen. And most importantly, they don’t know exactly when the warming might stop.
It is unknown territory.
But what should be apparent is that our interconnectedness around the globe makes this climate fight very similar to the fight against the coronavirus — an “all hands on deck” affair.
The Role of The United States in Stymieing Climate Change
Let’s review my initial concern: the inept U.S. response to COVID-19. I understand part of that was terrible leadership. However, a few months into the pandemic, it should have been clear to the rest of the public that we held (and still hold) a vital role in stopping this pandemic.
My fear transfers from this present pandemic to the future as I glance ahead to recognize our pivotal role in climate change mitigation. The U.S. produces about 15.5% of the total carbon output in the world.
This places the U.S. one spot away from the top, second only to China when it comes to annual carbon emissions. What we do and how we respond will drastically affect mitigation efforts.
So, what will we do? This isn’t a problem solved in a lab.
“There is no vaccine for climate change.” — Inger Andersen
We can not wait for some mystery liquid in a vial to save us from a climate crisis. We must change systems and infrastructure. Those changes must include our economic system — built on unhealthy exponential growth. And our transportation/energy system — built on unsustainable burning of fossil fuels.
We must change the way we relate to our planet and its resources. We must change our consciousness to favor cycles rather than sideways graphs.
These changes alone require the same foundational actions as a successful COVID-19 response: a global unified plan, a trusted belief in science, an ability to look outside of oneself, a willingness to make sacrifices, and the ability to change one’s lifestyle and act for the greater good.
As the U.S. coronavirus death toll climbs towards a grim half-million mark with no end in sight, I can’t help but believe we still have much to learn from this virus. And I am not talking about the scientists in the lab.
I’m talking about us, the public. We are the people who either do it right by working towards a common goal, or we do it wrong. Such a failure would contribute to catastrophic results.
It’s time that we realize, even as the pandemic hopefully comes under control as this year progresses, that there’s more work to be done. And it will require many of the same principles demanded of us throughout this pandemic.
What if COVID-19 is our dress rehearsal for dealing with climate change? If so, we have already glimpsed the outcome of a divided response based on incorrect information and too much selfishness — and it is devastating. Let’s not make the same mistakes again.
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