With the risk of sounding Pollyanna at the very worst time, I am reminded that devastating events can offer learning opportunities, new beginnings and even good news. Hurt and frightened as we justifiably are by the unpredictable future of this enigmatic pandemic, there seems to be an upside rising.
The upside evidently started in China, where 80,000 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus: Human mobility has slowed so drastically that the reduction in carbon emissions from transportation in Chinese cities is palpable. Coal-fired power plants are cutting way back. Large particulate-emitting industrial processes are shutting industrial processes are shutting down. The empirical news is that CO2 emissions have been cut by 25 percent. According to the NASA Earth Observatory, the mean tropospheric NO2 densities over Bejing have fallen to near undetectable amounts as assessed via satellite since the locals reacted to the very recent viral threat. Illnesses caused by pollution are already down by a substantial margin in that region and, for sure, many other locations worldwide. As we are forced to change our habits, we clean up the environment?
For the foreseeable future, we are coerced into drastic changes of how we live. Now, what if we earthling hominids caught onto a trend, after, perchance, we settle into an acceptance of lifestyle sacrifices; once we acknowledge that living without gasoline and glyphosate is endurable; as the vibrant and healthy among us admit that simply living in clean air can supply all the basics for sufficient entertainment, when compared to the alternative.
Stricken, like all people of the Earth, I am bound by the dire necessity to react to this abrupt viral assault, as dictated by scientists who have spent their lives studying for such possibilities. At the same time, I am in awe of the seeming, tip-toeing recovery of our biosphere. Again, this comes as a result of the sudden curtailment of decades of excessive human productivity. And not a minute too soon. I can’t help but think in Shanghai and L.A., I betcha there have been days when outdoor oxygen was a premium. That can’t be fun, as those who now suffer from this current, severe respiratory affliction can affirm.
I have read that accumulated irresponsible activities by world populations has caused northern permafrost to thaw and release virulent viruses. There could be many. It is not impossible that Covid-19 spewed from that source before it found its way to the bats of Wuhan. We have perpetrated lots of destruction. Our trend to effect economic growth above all other interests, including human and planetary well-being, burdens our education institutions with dogma. Life on Earth is convincingly marginalized for the bottom line of human industry.
Is our current frightening situation waking us to an opportunity? Are we now ready to be responsible, and to be once again, as a species, an appropriate, acquiescent member of this diverse, interdependent biome? Not a minute too soon.
Sonny Crawford lives in Shelburne Falls