Covid-19 and the Environment
Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash Amid the stories in my Facebook feed of how deadly Covid-19 was in China and its progression to other nations, was this map: NASA and European Space Agency This shows the nitrogen dioxide — most commonly produced by automobiles and power and industrial facilities — in the air over China from before the Covid-19 quarantines began to a period during the emergency measures. The difference is startling, and as the virus spreads and other governments enact similar quarantines, more nations will also see a drop in nitrogen dioxide until the crisis passes. Since I first saw this comparison, I’ve wondered if this might be the silver lining in an otherwise devastating epidemic? Could this sudden drop in what people continuously pump into our atmosphere buy us more time to make permanent environment-friendly behavior changes? An ABC News story posted March 5, 2020, is not encouraging on this front. Andrea Dutton, a climate scientist at...