COVID-19 AND THE EARTH
(3 mins read)
If you’re active on social media, you may have come across the sentence “We are the problem” as a conclusion to how good Mother Earth is doing right now.
We’ve heard of blue skies and starry nights in Beijing, turquoise blue water on the West-African coast, or dolphins and swans idling in the usually busy waters of Venice.
I don’t know about you but reading these made me ecstatic! Not the part where I’m being called the problem of course, but the idea that the planet can regenerate itself without our input as humans.
Which means that if the various Global Warming Congress held yearly all over the world never amount to any tangible change in the life condition we have created for ourselves, we can surely count on Mother Nature to force us to sit at home, as she fixes what needs to be fixed. Now I don’t know if we can survive another global pandemic in this lifetime…
Let’s look at a couple facts and figures on the impact of the infamous COVID-19 on the environment.
A recent study by the Global Carbon Project observed a 17% reduction of Carbon Dioxide worldwide, becoming the biggest drop in CO2 emission since World War II
(Bill Gates surely knew what he was talking about when assimilating this disease to a world war, but that’s a topic for another day)
NASA also reports a Nitrogen Dioxide(NO2) reduction by 30%.
Other benefits of the lockdown include the increase of the Fish biomass as a result of a decline in fishing; animals in danger of extinction like Sea turtles returning to areas they once avoided, to lay eggs; and simply trees growing better and fuller, due to the improved air and water quality.
To say the least, this season has taught me that as we fight nature, she will fight us back and probably will win because she is way stronger than we are.
So what can we do ? Love her. Quit the polluting habits, plant trees, explore farming, improve our cars and airplanes’ maintenance, launch development plans that involve solar panels, and environmental projects to safeguard wildlife.
As Life gradually gets back to “normal”, may this amplified awareness be our new normal.
Lexical: Nitrogen Dioxide: NO2 is a highly reactive pollutant emitted mainly from the combustion of fossil fuels. Traffic pollution is considered as the major source of NO2 emissions. NO2 is considered highly lethal to human health as studies show that both short term and long term exposure to NO2 can increase mortality rate. NO2 can cause respiratory problems and annually, 4.6 million people die worldwide due to the poor air quality it creates.
Sources
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720323378