Climate Crisis? What Climate Crisis?
Hardly surprisingly the Coronavirus Pandemic has totally stopped most people from worrying about the climate. This crisis is so big, and it's upended our lives so fast, that we haven’t had time to think about anything much other than it and all its consequences.
In some ways, ironically, the pandemic is good for the environment. Since many of us are more or less confined to our homes we’re not driving around in carbon-emitting vehicles. A huge amount of commercial and industrial activity has stopped too. The air has never been clearer in LA. Last week I was able to see from the Sunset Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains, all the way to Santa Catalina Island off the coast in the Pacific. A distance of around 50 miles! How often does that happen? Never, normally.
Nevertheless in past crises, like the last recession, pollution has dropped only to pick back up again after, so this isn’t even a medium term fix. Once the crisis is over most people will be worried about the economy (with good reason :-) and attention will shift away from what surely is THE big existential crisis that humanity is facing. Still there are lessons that we can learn from the situation we’re in at the moment - even while we’re still in the thick of it. What are those lessons? I’ll look at that in my next post ;-).