Why COVID-19 isn't the climate solution it's made out to be

You can find a lot of graphs if you google COVID-19. From the risks it poses to manufacturing, to estimates of cases in South Africa, to, as I'll be discussing here, its impact on the environment, you can find a chart about pretty much anything under the sun relating to this coronavirus. But I'm not going to use any graphs, since the situation is constantly changing, and you could be reading this the day after it's posted, during a second wave, or even five years from now, when COVID-19 is just a distant memory.

As I said, there's a dozens, hundreds, of graphs and diagrams telling us that an upside of COVID is that it's great for the environment. Not to rain on your parade, but that's not how you should be thinking about it. We are starting to travel down a road, where, once lockdown is lifted, we'll just assume that the virus has sorted out anything climate-related and that it's at least earned us a few more years, even if we don't realise that this is the way we're thinking. But if we have this type of mindset, then those years are gonna tick by real fast and we'll be in a much worse situation. The reduce in air pollution, or less clothing production, is incredibly short-term, and, frankly, our planet is not a short-term issue. These 'benefits' will only make us stop thinking about the planet, and just assume it's all solved (it's not).

Yes, there are things we can learn about how to tackle climate change from COVID-19, and from the lockdown, like that we really don't have to go into work every day, hence reducing emissions, but we're not going to make those changes if we set aside our planet as an issue.

It definitely doesn't seem like it right now, but climate change poses just as big a threat as COVID-19 does. Global warming causes 300,000 excess deaths a year. To put that into perspective, the current death toll from COVID, as of 1st June 2020, is about 375,000. And, yes, that is quite a bit more, but climate change is drastically more of a long-term issue and pandemics like this only occur once every hundred years or so, so in reality, climate change is just as much of, if not more of, a pressing issue. I'm not trying to downplay the threat that COVID-19, and illness in general, poses; it's something we clearly need to tackle, but climate change is just the same, and even though it might not seem like it now and this very same issue will be something that will affect my future children and grandchildren, whereas, chances are, COVID won't.

Unlike with COVID-19, we are directly in a position where we can make the world a better, safer place for those children and grandchildren in terms of climate change. Think of it like this. Every single-use coffee cup you use, every piece of paper you could recycle but you don't, every plastic bottle you use, will take a year off the lives of your great-grandchildren. Obviously those aren't perfect correlations, but it really makes you think about the direct effect your actions, positive or negative, will have on future generations.

Every time you use a reusable bottle, you have the potential to save a life. Just like every time you wear a mask, or keep two meters. So do both.