Sudden Lifestyle Shift to Avoid Getting COVID-19 Impacts Climate Change

According to the New York Times article “Social Distancing? You Might Be Fighting Climate Change, Too,” the new lifestyles or habits that we have acquired by necessity to safeguard against contracting the coronavirus have some positive impacts on climate change.

As of the publishing of this post, you might have read or watched on the news that countries have announced travel restrictions on all modes of transportation, both local and international, to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Many big sports, concerts, and convention gatherings, both local and international, have been cancelled. People who have come from other countries that have an ongoing coronavirus outbreak are required by their mother countries to self-isolate for at least 14 days.

Dr Kimberly Nicholas, a researcher at Lund University Center for Sustainability in Sweden, said that the source of our biggest carbon emissions comes from these three lifestyles: getting on an airplane, driving a car, and eating an animal (Schwartz, 2020).  

Schwartz (2020) says further:

• According to Dr Nicholas, people who are avoiding travel by air and car because of coronavirus are already 2/3 on the way to reducing carbon emissions. She is the author of a 2018 study that looks at GHG emissions reductions through people’s behaviour in fighting against climate change and is now writing a book on personal action and the climate crisis.  
• But now, due to the virus, things have changed drastically. People limit travel and mobility by working from home and abstaining from social interactions.
• Social distancing already reduces greenhouse gas emissions, an effective climate-mitigating action.

But how long these habits, such as working from home, travelling less, ordering groceries online, avoiding unnecessary social gatherings, etc., will stick after the coronavirus is contained will probably depend on the benefits or rewards a person gets from these activities.

Climate change and coronavirus have something in common

Do climate change and coronavirus have something in common? According to Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, both demand early aggressive action to minimize loss (Sengupta, 2020).

Sengupta (2020) explains more:

• The World Health Organization claimed at one point that there are ‘alarming levels of inaction’ regarding the global response to the coronavirus—a familiar phrase to those who have been pushing drastic actions against climate change.
• Both demand early aggressive action to minimize loss or to ‘flatten the curve’. Scientists have been calling on world leaders to take more climate action to reduce emissions. Now, they say that inaction has led to extreme climatic events like the three-month-long flood in the Florida Keys, wildfires in Australia, and deadly heatwaves in Europe.
• Dr Elke Weber, a behavioural scientist at Princeton University, said that how we are responding to climate change stems from how our brain works. He said that our brains are bad at thinking about tomorrow, and climate science, which deals with future probabilities, is hard for us to be afraid of and challenging for our brains to process. Our brains have been wired to take care of the here and now.
• Our leaders and policymakers’ delaying actions on climate change are teaching us lessons on how to fight the coronavirus now. Though it may be costly now to act on these future threats, it is important to enact policies that will protect us in the not-too-distant future.  
• A big challenge still remains for climate change. These include halving global emissions over the next decade to keep temperature rise within 1.5 C degrees because failure to do so will lead to more catastrophes, like coastline inundation, worsening wildfires, and droughts as early as 2040.

A study by the University of Chicago researchers projected that by 2100, climate change will kill as many people who died of cancer and infectious diseases today.

The big question remains: Will emissions be accelerated after the coronavirus is contained to revive the global economy?

Sengupta’s article says it depends on big emitters like China and the US whether to enact green growth policies or continue using fossil fuels.

The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has been calling on world leaders to end wasteful subsidies for fossil fuels and take more ambitious climate change preventive actions.

Let us continue to be vigilant about protecting our health and our environment during the coronavirus pandemic.

PHOTO CREDIT: By Original author: Pharexia – This vector image includes elements taken or adapted from this file:  BlankMap-World.svg. Data derived from Johns Hopkins University CSSE, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New York Times, CNBC, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link