Covid 19 and the environmental crisis

Can we use the learning from the coronavirus crisis to help tackle the environmental emergency?

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The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the destructive consequences we face when we ignore scientific expert warnings and sacrifice human health for the economy. Scientists warned us of the inevitability of a pandemic, yet governments did not commit sufficient resources to ensure we would be adequately prepared for when it came.1,2 It has shown our current global model of ‘economic growth at all costs’ and the laws of supply and demand to be extremely fragile in such a crisis – whilst many people will die from the virus itself, including poorly-paid frontline workers told to keep on working – many more will also die from the slowdown in our economies and the cutting off of global supply chains throughout the pandemic.

At some point we will come out of the other side of this – and what then? My biggest hope is that out of the sadness and grief we can emerge unified and better equipped to handle the even bigger, but slower moving, threat to our overall existence – the environmental crisis that we face. Like the coronavirus pandemic, if we don’t act quickly and decisively, those most vulnerable in our society will face the biggest impacts first; but, unlike the pandemic, we will none of us be immune to it over time – and we’re not talking generations away, only decades. So what should we be looking to do now and in the weeks and months to come as we emerge from lockdown?

First and foremost, let’s not talk about going back to “normal” – normal wasn’t working – we all saw the news of Australia’s wildfires, we’ve seen the glaciers retreating at unprecedented rates and, close to home, we’ve felt the effects of increased flooding in the UK. In what was “normal”, we were exposing ourselves to an ever increasing likelihood of pandemics through destruction of our natural environment – SARS, Ebola, COVID-19 – all can be linked to our misuse and increasing pressure on the natural world. Instead let’s talk about how to learn from our responses to the pandemic and be ready to fight the environmental threat.

Let’s start by giving the scientific community the respect it deserves and listening to both their warnings and advice. They have been, and continue to be at the heart of the response to the coronavirus. Had we ignored the experts in recent months, had they been dismissed as fear-mongers, the peak of COVID-19 would be a far distant prospect. Let’s ask ‘what is the government going to do at the back end of this current crisis to avoid the even bigger environmental one?’ Instead of ploughing huge funds into fossil fuel industry bailouts, highways development and building yet more outdated fossil fuel reliant homes on greenfield sites, this is a key opportunity to focus that investment on green industries, green jobs and setting us on a new more resilient path.

Controlling COVID-19, ‘flattening the curve’, is a slow process and the results lag weeks behind the measures that have been taken. Flattening the climate crisis curve will be a much slower process still, with results measured over decades. The global response to the pandemic has given us insights into how people can change their behaviours when required to do so and when the reasons for doing so are explained to them. Can we as a nation adopt the necessary mentality moving forward to address the climate emergency as quickly as possible? Can we delay some of our immediate gratification so that there is still a world left to enjoy in the future?

Through this pandemic, we’ve seen some significant positive environmental impacts. China, Italy, the UK, Germany and other countries are experiencing temporary falls in carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide of as much as 40%, greatly improving air quality and reducing risks of asthma, heart attacks and lung disease.3 The World Health Organisation estimates that around 4.6 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution.4
People can now see vistas that until recently were completely hidden from view by smog – in the Indian region of Punjab, communities there can see the Himalayas for the first time in decades.5 With less human movement, the planet has also literally calmed, with seismologists reporting lower vibrations from “cultural noise” than before the pandemic.6 The picture is mixed for wildlife though; while in the UK, its likely to be a mostly positive impact, with significant reductions in roadkill and less hedgerow cutting leading to an increase in wildflowers, in other countries wildlife will face an increased threat, as the plummeting tourist industry results in less money and therefore staff with which to conserve endangered species and habitats.
Whilst the economy is impacted by not being able to travel, the impacts of which should not be underestimated, the pandemic has shown that a significant section of our global economy can run extremely well and at far lower environmental impact than the previous “normal”. We need this to be a lasting effect – those who don’t need to travel to “do a deal” or to have face to face meetings should not be travelling for work – that would leave the roads and rail clearer for those who do need to travel and result in a significantly lower number of flights, giving rise to better air quality in our towns and city centres, higher productivity and lower overall emissions. We also need to look at ever greater emphasis on local supply chains, supporting and using our local shops and utilising our homes as sources of production (i.e. growing our own food). We must do this equitably, so that people are not pushed into poverty.

When we come out of the lockdown, we need our economy to be focused on greener energy production and a rapid, major shift away from the fossil fuels that have helped build such a fragile global economy. Left unchecked, we’ve seen how the world’s global elite continues to exploit national crises to ignore their own impacts on the environment and our societal wellbeing. In the US, under coverof the crisis, the White House has rolled back fuel-economy standards for the car industry, stopped enforcing environmental laws and has resumed oil pipeline construction. The US government’s economic stimulus bill also included a $50billion bailout for aviation companies.7

We’re at a cross-roads. I hope we can emerge from the extreme sadness of each and every life lost through this pandemic as a stronger, more compassionate and balanced world, focused on solving the environmental emergency facing all of us.

Stay safe and well

Debbie Fletcher, Town Councillor, Bovey Tracey Town Council