COVID FLIPSIDE

Photo caption: NASA methane tracking image March 2020

Whilst we have been grappling with lockdowns, furloughs, infections, the R number, PPE, and the sadness of the alarming human death rates, two other important consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have received much less attention. These are the links with, and benefits to, the climate change and biodiversity crises. Let me explain.

Whilst the pandemic has raged, we have seen huge reductions in motor traffic and industry. Simultaneously, lockdown led to far less human footfall in our parks, nature areas and open green spaces. Measurements of climate-changing gases (e.g. carbon dioxide and methane) and pollution, especially CO₂ in our urban areas and along our roads, revealed a dramatic fall from pre-pandemic levels as well as cleaner waterways (fewer motorboats) and clearer night skies. Similarly, even the most casual lockdowned observer from a window cannot fail to have noticed the increase in wildlife during the day when usually many birds and mammals are not to be seen. The much-reported herd of goats taking to the streets of Llandudno and the wild boars in Barcelona are just an indication of a much wider phenomenon.

If, as economies recover, we could just avoid returning to pre-COVID old ways and habits and learn from these virus flipside benefits, we could meet our net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, pollution amelioration and biodiversity recovery targets. If we don’t, we will be back to square one and rushing headlong to a hot and hostile world. 

It is therefore vital that governments do not return to their old ways. Yes, I hear you sigh when you register the disconnected and seemingly poorly-informed or downright anti-nature outpourings of Trump, no-newt-counting Johnson and other senior politicians, but it could be done if governments have the courage truly to be led by the science, as they love to say but seldom implement, and take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make structural changes to their old ways of thinking and avoid a return to the gas-guzzling, nature-destroying policies that brought about the crises in the first place. Here are some thoughts on things that we need to do, in no particular order: 

• Urgently phase in renewable energy, including a universal shift to electric vehicles which means boosting urgent investment in battery technology such as further improving power-to-weight ratio and charge speed & storage capacity to increase vehicle autonomy. It is essential that renewable energy becomes much cheaper than fossil fuel.
• End short commutes by petrol/diesel vehicles where walking or using electric bikes or scooters is a better alternative.
• Face up to the problems of air travel and shipping which are very large contributors to climate change. Both have to be made to meet the net zero emissions challenge rather than be exempted from it as they seem to be until 2023. This means upping the investment in developing alternative technologies and fuels and, unpopular though it may be, an end to airline subsidies and cheap flights that do not reflect their environmental cost.
• Avoid building roads and infrastructure projects that drive fossil fuel use and fragment or destroy natural habitats. Projects must themselves be zero emission and biodiversity net gain compliant, as too must their consequences. The UK government’s road transport decarbonisation strategy is an example of a move in the right direction but much more needs to be delivered on the ground.
• Renovate and insulate all inefficient heat-leaking buildings and support new builds with a combination of grants and tough regulations to achieve net zero emissions.
• Place high taxes on all fossil fuels and subsidise renewables.
• Ensure the policy to phase out petrol and diesel cars and gas boilers is strictly implemented, preferably more quickly.
• End deforestation and wildlife habitat destruction and fragmentation, and promote a green, carbon-absorbing landscape of trees and biodiverse open spaces that observe policies of rewilding, proscription of pesticides and realisation of sustainability. A major increase in biomass by creating new woodlands that contribute to carbon capture and storage is essential to offset society’s carbon emissions that we cannot reduce to zero. Urgently apply other scientifically proven methods of carbon capture such as the spreading of rock dust.
• Protect and appreciate the value of ecosystems and of human membership of them and our vital interrelationships with nature.
• Reduce consumption and our environmental footprint.
• End the gross inequalities between rich and poor, the haves and have nots, the schooled and the education-deprived, and include the excluded and the disenfranchised in our society. These inequities are iniquities and foster environmental and social troubles. Wiser government is needed, and good democracy cannot operate, as Socrates said more than two thousand years ago, without an educated populace.
• Reduce or even eliminate, though I can hear the cries of objection only too well, the intensive raising of large animals for meat. Become at least mainly vegetarian if you can – it’s really not so difficult. This is a good place to remind everyone that all our pandemics have arisen from human invasion of natural habitats. For example, we cut down forest, put pigs there, the pigs are exposed to new viruses and we then contract them; or we occupy a bat cave and are exposed to viruses that have existed in bats for millions of years to which the bats are resistant but which kill us.
• Use what influence we still have internationally, although greatly reduced by the imprudence of Brexit, to help in the attenuation and prevention of some of the anthropogenic planetary-scale adverse impacts of, for example, tropical forest destruction (Amazonian forest clearance is a terrifying ecological horror story), marine pollution ( the Pacific gyre) and excessive chemical fertilizer and pesticide use. Global collaboration is vital in resolving our climate and biodiversity crises.

Oh – and please listen to the series of IBPES podcasts – the first one is at https://natureinsight.podbean.com/e/1-disease-x-dr-peter-daszak/. 

Betts Ecology constantly works to reduce our carbon footprint, to influence others through helpful information, to encourage thinking about sustainability and to ensure that the management of our sites moves quickly towards net zero emissions and biodiversity net gain. We hope that the government will resist a return to pre-COVID habits. We are and will continue to be willing participants in measures to reverse climate change, enrich habitats and halt species declines.

Text © Betts Ecology