The disastrous coronavirus pandemic has upended the lives of billions of people across the globe. Many are out of work, many are working from home, many are sick or worried about someone who is. Many who have been infected are making a slow recovery. Many are not recovering. The numbers are staggering.
The economy has been dealt a blow that seems unthinkable. Factories are closed, millions have been laid off, and the highways and airports are empty. I imagine economists are apoplectic. Some advisers have been pressuring Trump to get people back to work, and he was caving to that pressure for a while, though he now seems to be taking the advice of the nation’s health advisers, at least as regards social distancing and staying out of work. To say the least, business is not proceeding as usual.
While this is a tremendously difficult situation for our nation and for many others, it should also provide us with an opportunity to critically examine the undreamt-of position we are in, as well as the “norm” that we have taken for granted for decades. The idea that Americans would ever be quarantined and ordered to stay home, that restaurants and bars and “nonessential” stores would be closed, that people would keep six feet away from each other on the street and in all public places, that Americans would wear gloves and masks to supermarkets, would have been laughed at six months ago as absurd, insane, and impossible. Yet here we are. The economy, hitherto a sacred cow, has been slaughtered to spare citizens’ lives. The government is passing out trillions of dollars to try to keep businesses and individuals afloat.
We are seeing what drastic steps governments are willing to take to keep their people alive. Such efforts are generally only directed at short-term threats, as most government policy, at least in the US, is generally short term and is made with future election prospects in mind. The steps we need to take to pass a Green New Deal and preserve the planet are nowhere near as life-altering as the steps we are already taking to attempt to contain the pandemic. Admittedly, the measures in place to combat the pandemic are meant to be short-term, and the measures needed to create a sustainable global economy would be in place for much longer, but they should still seem far less strange and threatening after the experience of the last few weeks.
Remember, now, the right wing’s hyperbolic reaction to the Green New Deal when it was proposed. In their bad-faith campaign of sowing disinformation, they claimed that the Green New Deal would mean an America without cows and without air travel. They painted it as a catastrophe for the economy and something that would completely upset American lives. Well, here we are, with nearly no one flying and not many driving, either. The cows are still there, but wouldn’t a plant-based diet (with appealing mock-meat substitutes) be less of a disruption to the American norm than the current stay-at-home orders? Since we’ve been able to function somewhat for the last three weeks, and have worked from home if at all, and have avoided friends and extended family without completely falling apart, we should realize that we are more flexible than we give ourselves credit for. If we can confine ourselves to our homes, only going out for walks and brief trips to get essential supplies, forgoing all of our other usual activities, can’t we start buying Beyond Burgers instead of beef patties? Can’t we envision electric cars and charging stations instead of the gas stations we have grown up with? Can’t we imagine an economy in which people are working to build a new energy grid powered by renewable sources? Can’t we imagine walking or biking more and driving less? Can’t we imagine putting trillions of dollars into renewable energy projects if they will help to save the planet, if we’re giving away trillions right now just to try to preserve the status quo?
So many needed environmental initiatives have been forestalled because they have been seen as bad for the economy, or politically unfeasible. Yet we now are in the midst of a disaster that is hundreds of times more damaging to the economy than any progressive environmental program would be. The economy is on its knees, but people are surviving. We are realizing that there are larger concerns than the economy and maintaining business as usual. We must be.
The environment has had something of a respite as human economic activity has been curtailed by the crisis. Satellite data shows that air pollution in China has been drastically reduced, and pictures show that the smog that normally plagues LA has vanished. Carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and nitrous dioxide emissions are down in many countries, with fewer cars on the road and fewer factories in operation.
This reprieve is, as things stand now, temporary. As concerned as we are about the pandemic, and about restoring the economy afterward, we need to keep our eye on the certain disaster that looms in the future if climate change continues unchecked. The EU is working to keep their “Green Deal” intact and to make sure that an eventual recovery from the impact of the pandemic happens in a way that is in keeping with the responsible environmental goals they have set to address the climate crisis. China and America are more likely to loosen regulations to jump-start their economies, though. We need to make sure this does not happen, and that the actions we take after the pandemic has passed are instead informed by the lessons we have learned from this event, which has reminded us of the fragility of our systems, of the importance of taking preventative measures, and of the adaptability we possess, of which we are too often unaware.
We have learned to live with less. Fewer trips to the supermarket and other stores, fewer takeout orders, fewer social visits. We’re eating more of what we have in the house instead of going out for more that we don’t need. Let us remember this when we return again to a state of abundance; let us second-guess those impulse buys and the waste they often produce.
To reduce unnecessary activity further, can companies reconsider their “work from home” policies going forward, now that most people who have been working have been working from home? Cutting down on commuting would be a major environmental gain, and rethinking the way we work would also lead to reduced wasted time in the office and more time at home with family.
With all schools closed and all students learning from home, likely for the duration of this school year, is the notion put forward on this blog several months ago about devoting a year of school to badly-needed environmental projects really so far-fetched? Now that people are seeing students learn in a completely different way (granted, not an optimal one—neither students nor teachers prefer learning from home to being in the classroom), and that all parties are coping gracefully with the change, can’t we imagine other temporary, forward-thinking teaching experiments that could give students real-world experience, educate them on the most pressing issues impacting their future, and propel the country into a new state of sustainability?
No one wanted this crisis, and we all hope to get through it as quickly and safely as possible, but we must not fail to learn from it. Obviously, we have much to learn about pandemic preparedness, but there are environmental lessons to be learned as well. We have to consider what this crisis is teaching us about the way we live, and the ways we can live differently going forward.