The Pandemic is Bad News for Climate Change

Short term gains, long term pain.

Here’s the thing — the pandemic is creating amazing, positive gains for the climate. Emissions are down. Electricity consumption has fallen. Animals are returning to cities.

Reports that wildlife is returning to urban areas is, in some cases, overstated. Source: Unknown. I’d thank them if I could, but a co-worker shared this on a team chat.

Globally, people are taking actions to curb the spread of this virus, actions that will define the current generation in the way that the wars and depression defined the lives of our grandparents or great grandparents (or great great grandparents, depending on how old you are). We will lose people. The economy will suffer.

In the short run, we are seeing that it is, indeed, possible to curb the economy for the good of the environment. It is, indeed, possible, for businesses to change the way they work. For many of us to stop commuting, sitting for hours a day in our cars.

Governments are pushing cash into the hands of citizens, where they can. Africans may well be fucked, with limited medical infrastructure, massive shanty towns across the continent, and likely insufficient funding for widespread testing. Folks will die there, in greater numbers than in the rich parts of the world, where I am merely inconvenienced by a city that is closed for business. I work from home, as many in the knowledge economy can do. Recent African economic growth might take decades to come back.