For me, there isn’t a deep, emotional concern about the environment. It’s too big and abstract. And frankly, it’s hard to think or care much about climate change or some future abstraction when we have something very real like the new coronavirus right in front of our faces.
But what I do care a lot about is what’s ‘in’ the environment: my two sons. Although they’re at a pretty low risk from the current threat, the potential effects of climate change, if they’re anywhere close to ‘as advertised’, are going to be the stories dominating the news cycle when they’re my age. Except they won’t have a vaccine-shaped light at the end of the tunnel.
Bleak, I know. But also not a foregone conclusion. And that’s what got me thinking about how the ways we’re dealing with our current crisis, as it continues to unfold in the month of Earth Day, might provide some room for optimism on the climate front.
Although it might seem like forever ago, we’re not far removed from the scary headlines that made me really start thinking about what’s happening to our environment. “Approaching the Point of No Return...” “20 Years and Counting...” “The World Can’t Survive Our Current Transportation Habits…”
Somewhere along the way, something clicked and made me sit up and take notice. And since I was already interested in transportation and commuting habits, that last headline led me to a research rabbit-hole where I learned three things that hit home pretty hard:
Eye-opener 1: Vehicles are America’s largest contributors of air pollution (1/3 of the global total). I thought it was manufacturing or energy production (or something else I wasn’t so directly tied to and responsible for). But while those factors definitely contribute, the cars and trucks we drive are No. 1.
Eye-opener 2: The average vehicle emits about 4.6 tons of carbon dioxide per year. I have zero concept of what a ‘ton of carbon dioxide’ means or looks like. Turns out, if you imagine a balloon that’s 30 feet in diameter, and you filled that balloon with C02 , it would weigh a ton. And the average American vehicle produces about 4 ½ of those balloons a year.
Eye-opener 3: My beloved hometown of Dallas is one of the biggest offenders. We’re the third-largest producer of on-road emissions, behind only New York and Los Angeles. And we’re getting worse by the year:
OK, great, got it. My transportation habits have been killing the environment. Thanks for more depressing news.
But then I saw a tweet that grabbed my attention.
So I took his advice, and I did think about it. And after digging around some more, I discovered some findings that made me feel a little better:
Compared with this time last year, levels of pollution in New York have been reduced by nearly 50 percent because of measures taken to contain the virus.
In Europe, satellite images show nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions fading away over northern Italy. A similar story is playing out in Spain and in the UK.
China saw an estimated 25 percent drop in carbon dioxide emissions nationwide in the two weeks following the Chinese New Year on January 25.
So, it turns out carbon emissions decline and air quality improves when societies lock down. Not that surprising. And frankly not that encouraging, considering that only a huge threat like COVID-19 could have led to such a big change so fast.
But what is encouraging is what it suggests: that the behavioral changes taking place around the world could carry over beyond the current coronavirus pandemic.
To be sure, when people start going back to work and moving around again, some of those improvements in air quality will pull back some.
The pessimistic scientific-experts say that we’ll return to our old habits, and that pollution levels will go right back to where they were.
But the optimistic ones see the potential for a permanent shift. They point out that attempts to develop new habits are more effective when they 1) start with small steps, and 2) take place during moments of change. And a significant moment of change will occur when we return to work: we’re going to have to re-create a new set of routines and habits anyway.
So, if we want to try to do something new, something we know will lead to a continuation of the benefits we’re seeing and enjoying today like bluer skies and less congested roads, we’ve got a better chance of sticking with it if we start taking preparatory baby steps towards that habit right now, and then really giving it a try right when it’s time to head back to the office.
That optimistic approach, along with some good new habits, might be able to carry us forward when the impacts of the new coronavirus start to fade in the rearview mirror, but climate issues are still on the road ahead.
Personally, I’ve been riding my bike more. I’ve always enjoyed riding it for fun, but now I’m also riding it to the store with saddle-bags for my weekly grocery run. I’d always meant to do this, but only recently have I had the free time to learn the routes and the required hacks, and eliminate the other excuses that kept me from using it as a practical source of transportation in addition to a random recreational activity. And I’m really enjoying it. I’m getting socially-distanced exercise while knocking out an errand.
Will some of the good habits I’ve developed during quarantine fade away once things go ‘back to normal?’ Sure. But the one I’m really sticking to is riding my bike instead of taking my car if I’m going less than 3 miles. To work, to the store, to the movie theater (man, I miss the movie theater). Will there be times I cheat and jump in the car? Sure. But I’m really going to try to make my bike the default.
That’s one thing I really want to hold onto on the other side of this. Because right now, while the environment isn’t at the top of my or anyone’s personal worry-list, I think we all have examples of individual actions indeed adding up to big things. That the sacrifices required to survive don’t feel so hard anymore, and that we might actually enjoy a new way of doing things once the ball gets rolling, and that it’s actually worth the effort.
What’s more, I’m starting to like how it feels to gain some control. So, going forward, when I think about the environment I’m really going to try to be “more little steps to a solution, less problem”. And because, when my kids are older, and COVID-19 is in the history books, and we’re living in whatever future world that resulted from the choices we make today, when they ask what I did, I like the idea of telling them that I really tried and that I did the best I could…and meaning it.
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