Yesterday I participated in a meeting (online, of course) with a group of climate activists to discuss the implications of the global COVID-19 pandemic for climate-protection work. Can our work continue at this time, and if so, how? Are there lessons from the pandemic that apply to the climate issue? Are there any silver linings — any ways to salvage something good out of this catastrophe?
These questions apply to most or all causes of concern to progressives, but there are some interesting implications for the environmental and social-justice movements in particular.
These questions apply to most or all causes of concern to progressives, but there are some interesting implications for the environmental and social-justice movements in particular.
What Can We Do Now?
In the immediate future, as the corona calamity unfolds all around us, there is not a lot of bandwidth in news media, social media, or the public’s attention for anything else, and that includes the global climate crisis. Those of us working on this issue may need to spend this time mainly on planning to resume that activism in a more focused and effective way once the pandemic subsides.
With some exceptions.
We need to act now, and organize our friends to act, regarding to new environmentally destructive actions the the U.S. administration is taking while everyone is looking elsewhere.
Environmental Enforcement Suspended: For example, on March 26, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that, with certain exceptions, it does “not expect to seek penalties for violations of routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, and reporting or certification obligations in situations where the EPA agrees that Covid-19 was the cause of the noncompliance.” There is no end date to this policy. This would be a good time to write to your elected representatives in D.C. urging them to look into this matter and make sure this doesn’t become a pretext for suspending environmental protections indefinitely, or allowing polluters to use the pandemic as an excuse.
With some exceptions.
We need to act now, and organize our friends to act, regarding to new environmentally destructive actions the the U.S. administration is taking while everyone is looking elsewhere.
Environmental Enforcement Suspended: For example, on March 26, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that, with certain exceptions, it does “not expect to seek penalties for violations of routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, and reporting or certification obligations in situations where the EPA agrees that Covid-19 was the cause of the noncompliance.” There is no end date to this policy. This would be a good time to write to your elected representatives in D.C. urging them to look into this matter and make sure this doesn’t become a pretext for suspending environmental protections indefinitely, or allowing polluters to use the pandemic as an excuse.
Photo by Ben Kerckx via Pixabay
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Auto Mileage Rules Rolled Back: The current administration is also gutting fuel-efficiency standards that were a key component of the Obama Administration’s climate plan. Here’s a second issue to be raised with our members of Congress. Write or call one day about the mileage standards and the next day about the EPA enforcement suspension, or vice versa. And ask your friends to do likewise.
How to Contact Congress: Visit ContactingCongress.org, enter your ZIP Code, press the TAB key if you’re on a computer, and your Senators and Representative should appear. Click the white envelope in a blue circle to visit their Contact pages, from which you can find an Email Me link as well as phone numbers. |
The Pandemic and the Climate
The pandemic has laid bare many truths of our age: that it’s folly to think something happening on the other side of the world isn’t relevant to us, as a virus from a city in China few of us had heard of has spread throughout the world, sparing only Antarctica; that our medical systems in many countries are woefully unprepared for major crises; that economic disparity hurts us all — whatever happens to the least of us can happen to all of us.
One other truth has been exposed as pollution levels have plummeted worldwide as economic activity grinds to a halt across many sectors. In India, in Europe, in the United States, and around the world, the air has become much cleaner. In fact, with the World Health Organization estimating that pollution kills 7 million people each year, it is possible that sheltering in place to avoid the coronavirus might save more lives than the pandemic takes because of reduced pollution alone. (Pollution is also likely increasing the death rate from COVID-19: People in polluted cities are more likely to succumb because they have been weakened by chronic exposure to bad air.)
We have been living through a pandemic of pollution for decades. Environmental activists may want to gear up now to make this case more forcefully once the immediate corona crisis abates, pointing out that pollution may be causing more pain and death than COVID-19, and deserves a crisis response — even before we consider the effects on the climate.
One other truth has been exposed as pollution levels have plummeted worldwide as economic activity grinds to a halt across many sectors. In India, in Europe, in the United States, and around the world, the air has become much cleaner. In fact, with the World Health Organization estimating that pollution kills 7 million people each year, it is possible that sheltering in place to avoid the coronavirus might save more lives than the pandemic takes because of reduced pollution alone. (Pollution is also likely increasing the death rate from COVID-19: People in polluted cities are more likely to succumb because they have been weakened by chronic exposure to bad air.)
We have been living through a pandemic of pollution for decades. Environmental activists may want to gear up now to make this case more forcefully once the immediate corona crisis abates, pointing out that pollution may be causing more pain and death than COVID-19, and deserves a crisis response — even before we consider the effects on the climate.
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In searching for silver linings in this cataclysm, I had the thought that perhaps the downturn in pollution might be buying us a little time to address the ecological threat. But this won’t happen automatically. For example, Popular Science notes, “During the 2008–2009 Great Recession, global carbon dioxide emissions went down by about two percent from previous years. But after that, we went straight back to polluting carbon, with global emissions growing in subsequent years. … After the downturn … China invested heavily in infrastructure as part of its stimulus, producing massive amounts of steel and cement—big sources of greenhouse gas emissions.” Globally, pollution levels rebounded after the recession. Regarding carbon dioxide, for example, the Independent reported in a 2011 article: “Unlike previous global recessions, which caused long-term dips in carbon dioxide emissions lasting several years, the recent recession caused just one year's fall of 1.9 per cent, which was quickly reversed by a dramatic rebound of 2010 and 2011.”
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However, the way the U.S. responded to the recession after Barack Obama took office made a lasting, positive difference for the environment. The economic stimulus bill of 2009, designed to pull the U.S. out of the Great Recession, “included provisions for what amounted to the largest clean energy bill in the United States’ history,” Popular Science reports. “In the decade that followed the recession, stimulus money helped renewables become affordable and rapidly increase their share of the market.” (This made it affordable for us to buy the rooftop solar cells that are powering the computer I’m using to write these words.)
The 2009 legislation was touted as a program for economic recovery; its environmental benefits were presented as a means to that end, not the other way around. Eco-activists should begin now to put together a post-pandemic economic recovery package that would create jobs, rebuild the economy, reduce economic disparities, and protect the planet all at the same time.
The 2009 legislation was touted as a program for economic recovery; its environmental benefits were presented as a means to that end, not the other way around. Eco-activists should begin now to put together a post-pandemic economic recovery package that would create jobs, rebuild the economy, reduce economic disparities, and protect the planet all at the same time.
Wait a minute — we already have such a program, and it’s called the Green New Deal.
But I think we probably should ditch that term for the time being. The phrase “Green New Deal” has been so maligned by the Right that many people stop listening as soon as they hear that phrase, connecting it with the ridiculous fear-fantasies promulgated by the pollution-industrial complex and its toadies in government. Instead, we should repackage its most salient elements into a proposed set of Coronavirus Recovery Economic Action Tactics (CREAT).
Also, the Green New Deal is a statement of principles and aspirations, not a legislative program. It has changed the debate over climate from whether to how much we should take action, which is a huge achievement. Let’s declare that it has accomplished that key goal and move on, taking a cue from the successful 2009 effort by sidestepping the culture clash to the extent we can, embedding environmental policies in a proposed recovery package while keeping the economic recovery goal the primary public selling point. (I.e., more “New Deal,” less “Green” — not in the proposal itself, just in the packaging.)
But I think we probably should ditch that term for the time being. The phrase “Green New Deal” has been so maligned by the Right that many people stop listening as soon as they hear that phrase, connecting it with the ridiculous fear-fantasies promulgated by the pollution-industrial complex and its toadies in government. Instead, we should repackage its most salient elements into a proposed set of Coronavirus Recovery Economic Action Tactics (CREAT).
Also, the Green New Deal is a statement of principles and aspirations, not a legislative program. It has changed the debate over climate from whether to how much we should take action, which is a huge achievement. Let’s declare that it has accomplished that key goal and move on, taking a cue from the successful 2009 effort by sidestepping the culture clash to the extent we can, embedding environmental policies in a proposed recovery package while keeping the economic recovery goal the primary public selling point. (I.e., more “New Deal,” less “Green” — not in the proposal itself, just in the packaging.)
Brave New World
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In the coming days and weeks, life will be a nightmare for many of us. Those who are careful enough and fortunate enough to avoid infection by the 2019 novel coronavirus will still suffer as people we know of and people we know succumb. Already, some of my friends have lost jobs, valuable organizations and businesses have closed for good, and a few dear friends are suffering the painful effects and risk of dying from COVID-19 infections, and in the U.S., things are just getting started. The White House is occupied by a team of incompetent asses led by the COVIDiot-in-Chief who initially acted too slowly, are doing things every day that make the situation worse, and don’t seem to understand how deeply over their heads they are. And they’ve largely sidelined the Centers for Disease Control, the government agency populated by the world’s leading experts in epidemic management and control!
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The world will be forever changed. It’s far too soon to know how it will change. But not too soon to start thinking about ways we want it to change, and to work to bring those changes about.
Present Tense; Future Perfect?
Now that the $2 trillion stimulus package passed by Congress has showed that we can extend unemployment insurance and sick leave to everyone, will we keep those essential safety-net items once the crisis recedes? Will our new efforts to support one another through this crisis continue after? Will we continue to associate words like “hero” and “patriot” more to medical professionals and social services, and less to war and warriors? Will we keep appreciating the grocery clerks and postal workers for the essential providers they are? After enforced physical distancing, will we practice more “social closeness,” perhaps spending a little less time in public with our eyes glued to our phone screens? These are not outcomes that depend on forces of nature; they depend on choices we make and model and encourage.
I offer these thoughts not to make light of the horrific situation the world is facing, but to encourage us to find rays of hope peeking in between the tragedies, so we can keep going as we live through this and be ready to act on the other side. Keep strong, stick together, support one another, and look forward to a brighter tomorrow. It is coming. Let’s be ready to help bring it into being.
I offer these thoughts not to make light of the horrific situation the world is facing, but to encourage us to find rays of hope peeking in between the tragedies, so we can keep going as we live through this and be ready to act on the other side. Keep strong, stick together, support one another, and look forward to a brighter tomorrow. It is coming. Let’s be ready to help bring it into being.
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“It’s ironic that as the pandemic forces us into our separate corners, it’s also showing us how intricately we are all connected. It’s revealing the many ways that our lives intersect almost without our noticing. And it’s showing us just how tenuous our existence becomes when we try to abandon those connections and distance from one another. Health care, housing, race, inequality, the climate — we’re all in the same leaky boat.”
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