A sober reflection on Earth Day amidst Covid-19
Climate change has been increasing in intensity for years. The manifestations vary from atmospheric changes to environmental disasters, such as the wildfires in the Amazon, California, and Australia. Covid-19 can be traced to a wet market in Wuhan, China, a place of massive breeding of wild animals. It can be said that the virus is yet another consequence of humanity’s disruption of the natural balance.
As Covid-19 continued on its global rampage, we were reminded once more of the destructive side of nature, as fires devastated Poland’s largest national park on 22 April. Also coinciding with the 50th anniversary of World Earth Day, I found myself reflecting on the environmental consequences of recent developments. For example, the pandemic has been linked to halted recycling programs — for fear of contagion — and an increase in household waste (Bloomberg News, 2020).
Perhaps the Covid-19 crisis provides us with a new opportunity to explore the following three models to “fix” climate change.
Mass mobilization
Throughout history, mass mobilization has been successful in stirring up consciousness and support for legislative action. The protests and movements that gave rise to World Earth Day were provoked by tragic events such as the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill in the US. While global environmental movements are building on past successes to save the planet, however, the challenges of collective action limit their impact.
Take this year’s Earth Day celebrations. In light of Covid-19, the usual demonstrations were replaced by digital activism, such as “the online gaming community” (Laville, 2020). But the lack of access to affordable, or reliable, internet connections for the poorest citizens of many developing countries also means that such digital activism remains out of reach for those most affected by the consequences of climate change and Covid-19.
Practicing every-day sustainability
When scaled down to individual and local levels, daily, sustainable measures are most effective in combating climate change. Examples include the training of female plumbers in Jordan to combat drought (Aljazeera, 2017), or Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, founded by Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai. Imagine the global impact if a tree is planted on every plot of land with living occupants (two-per-plot for companies running operations on a similar land size).
Favorable policies
International policy “consensus” is crucial in tackling global crises. Both the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been vital in creating momentum to address climate change. While lofty, and burdened by bureaucratic processes and delays to much-needed structural reforms, the UN has nailed it in adopting six principles for addressing climate change.
But as long as we keep dreaming of a return to “normalcy” post Covid-19, we are making a grave mistake. Our fate is vividly portrayed in a dramatic Youtube video, (Our house is on fire — Greta Thunberg’s Earth Day call to action, 2020) by Reuters. The satire depicts a family going on with life in a house nearly razed down by fire
But the ongoing lockdowns in most parts of the world do provide us with ample time to reflect on how to fix the planet. Our crops must remain green, and, yes, we will survive both!
#StayHome and #StaySafe
Written by Dorcas Abimbola Omole
This article is part of Covid-19 Food/Future, an initiative under TMG ThinkTank for Sustainability’s SEWOH Lab project (https://www.tmg-thinktank.com/sewoh-lab). It aims at providing a unique and direct insight into the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on national and local food systems. Also follow @CovidFoodFuture, our Video Diaries From Nairobi, and @TMG_think on Twitter. Funding for this initiative is provided by BMZ, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
