The world is facing a common enemy scenario, where people today are ready to look beyond the borders, religion, caste, class and other social boundaries. A novel virus which keeps inside our homes is already reorienting our relationship with our environment, government, work and even to the society at large.
While these changes are unfamiliar and unsettling, yet no one can deny the positive impact it has had on the environment. If reports are to be believed the earth seems to be recovering amidst COVID-19 spread.
In these extraordinary times, several countries have implemented restrictions upon public interaction, suspending public transports, limiting travel (air or road), closing restaurants, pubs, cancelling events and encouraging people to work from home. This in turn has resulted in dramatic reduction in amount of harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Satellite images from the European Space Agency and NASA are showing improved air quality. There is a steep fall in nitrogen dioxide emissions in the wake of lockdowns in China and Italy (the two worst affected countries).
Environmental resource economist Marshall Burke has stated there is a proven link between poor air quality and premature deaths. Although a strange question, but never the less meaningful- whether the economic disruption caused by COVID-19 will result in saving lives due to reduction in air pollution. Answering the question, he says “at just two months of reduction in pollution levels likely saved the lives of 4,000 children under five and 73,000 adults over 70 in China alone. That’s significantly more than the current global death toll from the virus itself.”
While China has got clearer skies; Italy, notably the Venice canals are experiencing unprecedented return of fish, swans and even dolphins. Although, some news portals have claimed that while the canal waters are clearer, the return of swans to the canals, who were always there, as false and presence of dolphins as totally fake. Even then, evidently a full stop button to Gandolas means a reset button for nature giving us cleaner canals. A CNN report titled “There’s an Unlikely Beneficiary of Coronavirus: The Planet” highlights this very reclamation of nature during human quarantine. Clearly, while Corona is a virus for mankind it is a vaccine for the planet.
While COVID-19 is to go down as one of the saddest occurrences in human history, it also comes with a reminder that human civilization needs to go easy on exploiting this earth.
