COVID-19 gave us the chance to step back, take a deep breath, and consider the impact of our way of life on our planet.
If the outbreak and spread of the virus taught us anything, it was how inextricably interconnected and interdependent we truly are – biologically, economically and environmentally. China sneezed, and the whole world got a new Depression – and there was nothing Great about it.
Even now, all these years later, we still can’t measure the size of the socioeconomic fallout from the pandemic. The trillions (and trillions) of dollars are easy to count, but what about the intangibles? A young person’s hampered career opportunities? Treating psychological angst? The populist leaders who rose to prominence, whose legacy can be counted not in the deficits of our treasuries or our balance sheets but in the deficit of our democracies?
Silver linings did emerge amid the storm clouds; perhaps the most important historically speaking was how the prolonged economic slowdown of 2020-2022 stopped the clock of our frenetic business-as-usual and allowed us a chance to step back, take a deep breath and start recalibrating how we live on our blue planet. Very blue indeed in the wake of the crisis. In that moment of pause, it became obvious to all but the most myopic that the virus was a scream for help from an ecosystem groaning under the weight of expanding from 1.8 to 7.7 billion people in under 100 years.
2020 brought home to us that Gaia theory was not fringe quackery and that Greta was onto something. In short order, a window opened itself to the world to see how much damage we were doing. Many clambered through it.
Satellite imagery taken shortly after the initial stages of the lockdown offered a persuasive “what-if” perspective. An overhead view of Italy revealed a significant decline in nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a key element in greenhouse gas emissions. In Venice, fish began to appear again in the canals – something that amazed the gente vecchia. Similar seeming miracles occurred around the world. Before and after photos showed how quickly the earth could heal – if only we gave it the chance. What, people wondered, could we do if the pause became a reset? Save the Amazon? Stave off the melting of the Greenland ice shield? Resurrect extinct species like the Saudi Gazelle?
According to Ms. Thunberg (who thankfully recovered from the virus), these initial environmental achievements were a beacon of hope but wouldn’t mean much unless they were replicated, amplified and sustained the world over. Over the last few years, we’ve frankly struggled to do that. The need to behave better, enact and enforce stricter regulations, and hold big business accountable for preventing ecological disasters before they occur have all been unnatural acts. Deploying big data and AI-powered predictive analytics, and fanatically embracing the three R’s of planetary renewal – reduce, reuse and recycle – were easier said than done.
The conundrum for the world remains: How do we grow economically (with all the benefits wealth brings) without destroying the very ground beneath our feet? Author and MIT researcher Andrew McAfee believes the virus occurred at a point that was already tipping; that since the inaugural Earth Day in 1970, we have taken better care of our planet by consuming fewer resources and reaping greater economic rewards – even as the world’s population has skyrocketed.
In his 2019 book More from Less, McAfee wrote that rapidly expanding and technologically sophisticated market-based economies around the world are creating scale and efficiency for producing and consuming more products/services from fewer resources. Tighter collaboration between the forces of technology and capitalism, as well as better governance and great public awareness, will make the world a greener place, he believes.
McAfee’s ideas raised many eyebrows before and after the virus struck; he seemed to see a different world than millions of environmentalists in the U.S. and Europe did. But his argument gave many people encouragement. The need to grow – sustainably – has become, since 2020, the most pressing challenge the world has ever faced. The real fallout of the pandemic was in altering the arc of the moral universe.
