TICK TOCK THE CLIMATE CLOCK – PART THIRTY

“Humans are part of nature, not separate from it,

and human activity that hurts the environment also hurts us.”

Meehan Crist

writer in residence, biological sciences, Columbia University

NYT Crist

I’ve often thought that the Fall of Man, the biblical story of the casting out of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, that state of Nature where man and woman lived in harmony and grace with other creatures, is a parable about our degradation of the Earth after the Fall.  That is our original sin and this is my interpretation.  

Eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge sought to establish a hierarchy among living beings with Man at the apex, assuming dominion over Paradise.  This false knowledge created a false hierarchy which created a false narrative:  Man is not of Nature, but above it; Man is not controlled by Nature but rather controls it.  In my interpretation of this parable, it was our blind, misguided, arrogant pride and our belief in an illusion of superiority that is our original sin, and it is that sin which caused us to be cast out of Paradise into a kind of Hell that we alone have created on Earth.

Today I read that COVID-19 infections have shut down meat packing plants, breaking the food supply chain.  Tyson Foods, Inc., an American multinational based in Arkansas, the world's second largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork, says millions of animals will need to be killed without being turned into food, because people--not the animals--got sick. The Chair of the House Committee on Agriculture estimates that between 60,000 and 70,000 pigs will have to be euthanized every day.  I guess it’s cheaper to kill these innocent animals than to feed them.  And cheaper still than to revamp slaughterhouse production lines to socially distance workers.  If this horrendous killing of perfectly healthy animals for rank greed isn't a sin, I don’t know what is.

 

Can we atone for our vainglorious pride and get back into harmony with Nature?   I am not alone in thinking that the coronavirus provides us with that historic--even evolutionary-- opportunity.  An op-ed in today's New York Times by António Guterres, UN Secretary General, outlines a six-point plan to stop the pandemic and slow climate change at NYT Guterres.

The fact is, as Guterres implies, the virus is writing history and has offered Man the role of a lifetime.  What can we read in that, starting with the animals?

The lockdowns may have kept humans indoors, but they've released animals into the everyday world we're used to dominating (See Guardian animals).  Venetians report seeing fish and water fowl swimming in their canals. 

 Mountain goats wander through a small town in Wales. 

 A sea lion basks on a sidewalk in Buenos Aires.

Grey langurs cavort on a deserted road in Ahmedabad, India.

And fallow deer graze on a lawn in East London.

The lockdowns have also had good short-term effects on climate, as NYT Crist describes:

In China and Italy, the air is now strikingly clean. Venice’s Grand Canal, normally fouled by boat traffic, is running clear. In Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta, the fog of pollution has lifted. Even global carbon emissions have fallen.

Coronavirus has led to an astonishing shutdown of economic activity and a drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels. [The decreased demand has resulted in oil producers paying oil sellers to store their oil instead of marketing it.] In China, measures to contain the virus in February alone caused a drop in carbon emissions of an estimated 25 percent. The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimates that this is equivalent to 200 million tons of carbon dioxide — more than half the annual emissions of Britain.

The coronavirus lockdowns have also re-calibrated our social behavior and made it clear that personal choice can translate into political choice, not just for public health, but also for climate mitigation.  As a climate change advisor to the WHO writes at Weforum:

…the global health crisis we find ourselves in has forced us to dramatically change our behaviour in order to protect ourselves and those around us, to a degree most of us have never experienced before. This temporary shift of gears could lead to a long-term shift in old behaviours and assumptions, which could lead to a public drive for collective action and effective risk management. Even though climate change presents a slower, more long-term health threat, an equally dramatic and sustained shift in behaviour will be needed to prevent irreversible damage.

…[C]rises like these offer an opportunity for a regained sense of shared humanity, in which people realize what matters most: the health and safety of their loved ones, and by extension the health and safety of their community, country and fellow global citizens. Both the climate crisis and unfolding pandemic threaten this one thing we all care about.

When we eventually overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, we can hopefully hold on to that sense of shared humanity in order to rebuild our social and economic systems to make them better, more resilient, and compassionate. The financial and social support packages to maintain and eventually resuscitate the global economy post-pandemic should therefore promote health, equity, and environmental protection.

Ultimately, public health is a political choice. A choice we are now confronted with, and one we will have to make over and over again as we transition to a more resilient, zero-carbon, just and healthier future.

The coronavirus has vividly clarified the relationship between a healthy public and a healthy planet.  As reported in Guardian London:

There is mounting evidence of detrimental health impacts of air pollution, through lung disease, heart attacks, asthma, effects on pregnancies and on intelligence levels.

Research published on Monday also found that the five most polluted regions among 66 analysed in Italy, Spain, France and Germany accounted for 78% of all reported Covid-19 deaths in those areas.

Another study looked at fine particle pollution in the US and found that even small increases in levels in the years before the pandemic were associated with far higher Covid-19 death rates.

A recent study even found the coronavirus hitching a ride on particulates, enhancing the reach of its spread.

The question is, then, when the virus subsides and the world reopens for business and social activity, will these environmental and climate gains be lost?  Will Ruth's Chris Steak House be packed with meat-eating diners once again, or will more people embrace vegetarianism and even veganism? Will air travel roar back with a vengeance to previous levels, or will people do more video-conferencing?  Will manufacturing setbacks be so dramatic that businesses will default to the least expensive forms of energy to power back up, even though these fuels typically emit the most carbon and dangerous particulates, or will there be a push from the public to invest more heavily in green technologies?   Will industrialized countries (continue to) suspend environmental restrictions in order to bounce right back in a “V-shaped” recovery, or will they realize that public health depends on a healthy planet?  Will sovereign debt be so high that countries will claim they can’t afford to invest in climate mitigation, or will their citizens see that the money is there, it's always been there, and that allocating it is a political, not an economic, decision?  

At this moment, the virus is controlling our health and writing our climate history.  How will we edit and rewrite our future?  NYT Crist considers the question:

In the short term, response to the pandemic seems to be having a positive effect on emissions. But in the longer term, will the virus help or harm the climate?

Our response to this health crisis will shape the climate crisis for decades to come. The efforts to revive economic activity — the stimulus plans, bailouts and back-to-work programs being developed now — will help determine the shape of our economies and our lives for the foreseeable future, and they will have effects on carbon emissions that reverberate across the planet for thousands of years.

The pandemic presents an opportunity, to be sure, as these authors urge, but will we seize the day?  In the middle of history, we can't see tomorrow, much less a year or a decade or a generation from now.  Per Der Spiegel Paradigm Shift:

Epochal theories are always subject to chance. Claims of a fundamental shift are, despite all the arguments presented, little more than a game. In his tome "Cultural History of the Modern Age," the both brilliant and enjoyable Austrian Egon Friedell made the observation that humans have always been unable to understand the times in which they live. Contemporaries, Friedell wrote in the early 20th century, are never able to see the entirety of an historical event, but only seemingly arbitrary pieces.

It's a point of view that is difficult to argue with. The events of this dramatic pandemic are inconceivable, with our focus fluctuating wildly between the global crisis and the urge to panic buy toilet paper, between images of suffering and Italians singing from their balconies. How will the narrative of this era ultimately be written? When did the story begin? How many chapters have already been completed? What are the pieces that will ultimately become part of the completed work?

While we can't foresee how the story ends, we know that we are writing it, right alongside the virus.  And it's critically important to recognize that the plot line isn't us vs. the virus, or Man vs. Nature.  It's us living with the virus, Man living in Nature.  We are not antagonists, but joint protagonists.  We are part of a hermetic, holistic system that operates, whether we choose to see it or not, as one.  This is what we have to learn if we are to atone for our original sin and live in harmony with the world.

“The coronavirus pandemic is a distress signal coming to us from imperiled ecosystems and wildlife: it is not a one-off event,” argue Franz Baumann, the former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and a visiting research professor at New York University, and two other scientists in the New Republic.  We must answer the SOS; it's offering us the chance to write a better climate future.  Politico Earth Day argues:

The good news, or at least the empowering news, is that the fewer greenhouse gases we emit, the fewer awful things will happen. And the more people adopt a personal ethic of climate responsibility, the more pressure our leaders will feel to embrace that ethic. While the virus has momentarily flattened the emissions curve, bending it permanently will require individual and systemic change.

The clean skies over Los Angeles are a reminder that pollution, like social distancing, is a choice, and that individuals can make it better or worse. The virus has taught us that in an emergency, we can change our behaviors in ways we never imagined possible—not just by telecommuting and forgoing business travel (new climate-friendly habits that will hopefully continue after the pandemic) but by uprooting our lives to save others.

Do we have what it takes to return to the Garden?  I think the honest answer is simply, "We don't know, but we can hope and we can do our best."  Der Spiegel Paradigm Shift is optimistic about our future:

It will be exciting to be part of this new world. It will beneficial to put a stop to harmful developments that have been with us for too long. It will be fascinating to watch the development of a new paradigm, to see old ideas die and new ideas take their place. It will feel good to finally surmount the pre-corona era. It had reached its end. In his Easter speech, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier put it like this: "Perhaps we believed for too long that we were invincible, that we could continue to go faster, higher, farther. That was a mistake."

Like Adam and Eve in the Bible and like Icarus in Greek mythology, we fell from grace.  Isn't it time we picked ourselves up?

   

Keep it real!  Wear your mask!

Marilyn