Nature Rebounds During Pandemic Shut Down

A phenomenon that's being observed lately is the resurgence of nature as nations around the globe lock down over the COVID-19 pandemic. As car and airplane use plummets, air quality has rebounded in the absence of carbon polluters. Shut- down fossil fuel-burning factories have also meant a better air quality in countries such as India, where citizens can see the Himalayas from a distance, where they were previously blocked by dense industrial smog. As Jonathan Watts reports in Mother Jones:

"As motorways cleared and factories closed, dirty brown pollution belts shrunk over cities and industrial centers in country after country within days of lockdown. First China, then Italy, now the UK, Germany and dozens of other countries are experiencing temporary falls in carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide of as much as 40 percent, greatly improving air quality and reducing the risks of asthma, heart attacks and lung disease.

For many experts, it is a glimpse of what the world might look like without fossil fuels. But hopes that humanity could emerge from this horror into a healthier, cleaner world will depend not on the short-term impact of the virus, but on the long-term political decisions made about what follows.

After decades of relentlessly increasing pressure, the human footprint on the earth has suddenly lightened. Air traffic halved by mid-March compared with the same time last year. Last month, road traffic fell in the UK by more than 70 percent, to levels last seen when the Beatles were in shorts. With less human movement, the planet has literally calmed: seismologists report lower vibrations from “cultural noise” than before the pandemic." (our emphasis)

Anecdotally, we've seen wildlife in our yards increase noticeably in the past 60 days compared to previous springs, as their interactions with humans decline and as their world becomes safer for them. It should remind us of what we left behind with our long, dangerous embrace of fossil fuels, and the nihilistic gutting of environmental protections by con man and demagogue Donald "Moron Vector" Trump.

(photo: View of the Himalayas without the normal smog, via The Weather Network)