The Pandemic and the Planet
What COVID-19 can teach us about climate action
On January 1, 2020, my Instagram feed was filled with “2020 vision!” captions and smiling faces. It felt like a year where good things would happen: the election was coming up, many holidays fell on weekends, it was the start of a new decade. Reflecting back, though, that January was not the calm we remember. Tensions between the US and Iran escalated after Qasem Soleimani was killed. The Trump impeachment trial started. Australia experienced historic wildfires that sent shock waves around the world. I remember seeing photos of koalas with bandaged feet and feeling my heart shatter. The world was broken before the pandemic. We just needed a colossal shock to our system to be able to see it.
At the start of the pandemic, it seemed the shock that was COVID-19 could, potentially, bring long-awaited positive change. Air quality was better in much of the world than it had been in years. Water quality improved. Wildlife returned to places that had been dominated by humans and technology before everyone was sent home. And while no one (at least, not outside the epidemiology community) anticipated the mourning to come, many in the activist community saw a way forward.
Our entire economic system would have to change to address climate change and environmental destruction. We would have to completely reform our transportation sectors to eliminate the need for fossil fuel-driven cars and electrify the cars that remained. I live south of Los Angeles, and couldn’t even imagine a skyline here without smog before the pandemic. It would be difficult to make these changes, but it wasn’t impossible. March 2020 proved that.
And then, somehow, we collectively reverted. Epidemiologists continued to shout from every possible rooftop that things could and would get worse, but between politicians polarizing a deadly virus to the more sinister aspects of our own human nature to the lack of systems in place to provide support during an economic crisis like this one, we decided we didn’t care. It wasn’t fun to stay at home. We missed our old social lives. Young people felt invincible and decided they would rather risk getting sick than sacrifice their old habits.
Over four million people have died globally. Over 600,000 people have died in the US. With the rise of the delta variant and the simultaneous push to avoid past lockdowns, it’s clear COVID is not going anywhere.
And yet — despite our inability to change, our inability to look beyond our closest social circles and care for our communities, the crushing death toll — there is still a glimmer of hope. Only between 0.2% and 5% of hospitalizations in the US today are among folks who are vaccinated. Masks continue to be a strong source of protection against the virus and community spread. Vaccination rates are increasing, along with vaccine mandates from various state and local governments.
COVID showed us a way forward for environmentalism — the way that emphasized individual action and community strength. This method will be important. The stay-at-home orders in the spring of 2020 likely saved millions of lives, as did mask mandates. But the long-term solution that will actually work is the vaccine.
I am absolutely guilty of trying to bring the climate crisis to an individual level. I am always looking for new ways to make my life more sustainable and have always believed that individuals have the political and economic power to affect real change. But some crises just can’t be solved by individuals alone. Technology is a crucial partner in the fight.
In the wake of the IPCC’s most recent climate report, it’s clear there is no time to delay wide-scale climate action. We can learn a lesson from COVID and heavily invest in clean energy and carbon capture technologies to alleviate the climate crisis, the same way we poured money into vaccination efforts early on in the pandemic. These resources can and should come from the coffers of companies who have traditionally exploited the planet and its people, like oil and coal corporations and the investors who support them.
Individuals can support these changes by voting for elected officials who represent their values, and then holding them accountable once they are in office. We can put our money in ESG (environmental, social, governance) conscious stocks and personally invest in green technology.
The climate crisis is here. Let’s use COVID-19 as a lesson on how to move forward rather than a warning of what is to come.
