Earth Day 2020

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

World
COVID 19 cases (April 20, 2020): (1) > 2 250 000 
Deaths:  > 150 000 

This year is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, a day of celebration and action, completely overshadowed by the calamity of the coronavirus pandemic and its shocking news. Indeed, it is hard to think of much else, when it is not only the hospitals of major epicenters of the pandemic that are saturated, but also the morgues. In New York City, for example, bodies are piled in refrigerated trucks on the sidewalks, and mass graves are being dug on Hart Island (Reuters, 2020). In Italy, coffins are stacked up in neat rows, awaiting burial in churches, where all the pews have been removed (Giuffrida & Tondo, 2020). Because of distancing measures to mitigate the spread of the pandemic, people are dying alone, in the corridors of overcrowded hospitals or makeshifts, alternatively in their own living rooms, self-quarantined and suffocated (Berger, 2002; Horowitz & Bubola, 2020). 

However, before dismissing Earth Day as a digression, you might be surprised to find out that climate change is actually a "threat multiplier", according to Sherri Goodman, former first deputy undersecretary of defense in environmental security, now a senior fellow at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and Polar Institute. An amplifier of threats to life that include viral pandemics. Indeed, the predicted consequences of global warming, such as the increase in catastrophic climate events (e.g, tsunamis, tornados, droughts and floods) risk overwhelming healthcare, emergency preparedness, institutional and infrastructural systems (Ross, 2020). 

Population growth, encroaching on natural habitats, further eliminating carbon sinks, together with mass-migration of climate victims into refugee camps, create perfect conditions for zoonotic disease carriers to thrive, such as bats and rats; and for parasitic disease vectors such as mosquitoes, ticks or fleas to proliferate and expand their geographic ranges (CDC - Parasites). Zoonotic carriers of diseases, responsible for COVID 19, or parasitic vectors responsible for such diseases as dengue fever, West Nile virus and Lyme disease, are all zoonotic in that they transfer from animals to humans. In turn, such consequences of climate change on health, each converge in their connection to fossil-fuel burning, the root cause of the increase in greenhouse gases, ever-increasing since the industrial revolution, and hypothesized as directly responsible for global warming. Increases in greenhouse gases found in worsening air pollution, in turn responsible for some of the leading causes of death, such as chronic lower respiratory diseases (CDC – Climate effects on health)

Consequently, rather than digressing, it just might be right on track to lean in, at least today, to embrace the climate action theme of Earth Day 2020, even if it might take a heroic effort to bypass the grief, pain and burden of the pandemic, affecting everyone on earth, in such cruelly unequal ways. 

In fact, there is much to gain in climate action and subscribing to what is termed the Green Deal, reminiscent of the New Deal, launched as a successful stimulus and recovery program by Franklin D. Roosevelt, during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Chief among the benefits according to Chomsky, Pollin and Polychroniou (2019), is that the Green Deal will not only help to avoid the apocalyptic consequences of the path to increased global warming, it is foremost a viable economic and political platform.  In converting from a fossil fuel-based ‘dirty” economy to a green “clean” solar, wind and thermal energy-based economy (at an estimated cost of 2.5% of the GDP for 30 years in the US, according to economist Robert Pollin), the Green Deal will not only act as a global climate stabilization program, it will also create 2 to 4 times more jobs than those that might be created while maintaining the existing “dirty” industrial model.

The promises of the Green Deal, its potential to avert the disasters of global warming and  the consequences in terms of the toll on human life, as well its economic advantages, are perhaps the reason why some observers were quick to notice the absence of Green provisions and language, from the recent 2-trillion CARES Act stimulus package, even if President Trump opted to drop an explicitly earmarked 3-billion dollar oil-company bailout from the final package (Freidman & Villegas, 2020,; US Treasury Department). For example, Lamphere (2019) specifically points out the missed opportunities, resulting from excluding the following Green Deal provisions from the CARES Act:

• a carbon neutrality requirement for US domestic flights by 2025 as part of the airline bailout, meaning that, short of finding alternative clean means of propelling planes, airlines would have to sink as much carbon dioxide as they produce; 
• a Green Jobs program, different though in the spirit of the New Deal Works programs that created millions of jobs, resulting incidentally (back in the 1930s) in the planting of 2 billion trees, developing 800 parks and stocking rivers with 1 million fish;
• Green bonds issued to fund climate smart projects, promoting the conversion from dirty to clean economy; 
• Green tax credits, providing incentives to convert to green clean energy, and
• a National Green Bank to fund investments in projects and measures to mitigate global warming, while promoting the full spectrum of benefits associated with a Green Deal.

If no one has the heart to celebrate Earth Day 2020 in the midst of a pandemic still raging with a daily death toll updating by the hundreds, and stay-at-home orders protecting everyone from the spread of COVID 19, it might still be possible to take action, climate action, just as Earth Day 2020 had envisioned, many months ago, since climate action is also a preemptive measure in the battle for survival.

Imagine - John Lennon

UNICEF Version

References
Berger, P. (April 5, 2020) Coronavirus victims are dying alone. Wall Street Journal
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-victims-are-dying-alone-11586088001
CARES Act
https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf
CDC - Climate effects on health- Air pollution
https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/effects/air_pollution.htm
CDC - Climate effects on Health - Diseases carried by vectors
https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/effects/vectors.htm
CDC - Climate effects on health - Precipitation extremes
https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/effects/precipitation_extremes.htm
CDC - Climate effects on Health - Temperature extremes
https://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/effects/temperature_extremes.htm
CDC - Zoonotic diseases
https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html
CDC - Parasites
https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/animals.html
EarthDay.org
https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2020/
Friedman L. And A. Villegas (March 25, 2020) Climate change and the 2 trillion stimulus package.New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/climate/nyt-climate-newsetter-coronavirus-drought.html

Guiffrida, A. and L. Tondo (March 19, 2020) A generation has died: Italian province struggles to bury its coronavirus dead. The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/generation-has-died-italian-province-struggles-bury-coronavirus-dead

Horowitz, J and E. Bubola (March 16, updated March 19, 2020) Italy’s Coronavirus Victims Face Death Alone, With Funerals Postponed. New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-funerals.html

Lamphere, J. A (April 19, 2020) The Next Economic Stimulus Must Include Green New Deal Measures. Truthout

https://truthout.org/articles/the-next-economic-stimulus-must-include-green-new-deal-measures/

NASA Earth Day at Home
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/earthdayathome-with-nasa/

Polychroniou, C.J.  (September 18, 2019) Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin: If We Want a Future, Green New Deal Is Key. Truthout

https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-and-robert-pollin-if-we-want-a-future-green-new-deal-is-key/

Ross, D. (April 19, 2020) Climate change multiplies the threats of infectious diseases. Truthout

https://truthout.org/articles/climate-change-multiplies-the-threats-of-infectious-diseases/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=71649a96-ad00-4169-afc2-bb1b572e3345

Reuters (April 9, 2020) New York City Hires Laborers to Bury Dead in Hart Island Potter's Field Amid Coronavirus Surge. New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/09/us/09reuters-health-coronavirus-usa-hart-island.html
US Department of Treasury - the CARES Act works for Everyone
https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/cares

WHO - World Health Organisation Covid19 - Situation reports
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
Wilson Center - environmental change  and Security Program
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/program/environmental-change-and-security-program