In the months leading up to this year’s Earth Day, countries have been lining up to shut down borders, business operations, travel and other essential human activity. Covid-19’s impact on pollution and the environment can be said to be far more effective than any concert and awareness drive has been.
As economies and industries are crushed and faced with great uncertainty, the grounding of 80% or more of global flights have caused oil futures to tumble into the negative, something no one thought was possible.
Meanwhile, Earth takes a much deserved break from supporting the collective weight of Mankind. Skies and waters are clear once again. But we know it won’t last. Once the pandemic is under control, we will once again use and abuse our one and only home.
Smog filled India and China are now seeing much clearer skies than they were used to.
Covid-19 wouldn’t be the last pandemic we’ll experience. In fact, scientists are theorizing that we will start to experience more pandemic outbreaks as global warming unleashes previously dormant new diseases stuck in the ice.
We’ve seen what a few short months of controlled inactivity can achieve. Can we as a species come together to work on pushing this in the right direction?
Visionaries like Elon Musk are working hard to make us an interplanetary species, and he has an ambitious timeline of having a self sustaining city on Mars by 2050. But we know all about Musk and keeping to timelines.
Until then, Earth remains our only home.
This is at once the most gloomy and the most effective Earth Day we’ve seen yet.