The economic destruction caused by the COVID-19 virus has devastated the economy of many nations, but something quite unexpected has happened as a result.
A sharp drop in pollution from power plants, airplanes, and motor vehicles has cleared the air quite literally and allowed people to see things that were hidden by a pall of man-made pollution for the first time in decades.
In the Indian city of Jalandhar this week, residents were astonished to find they could see the mountains in the Dhauladhar range (some 213 Kms away), which is part of the Himalayas, for the first time in decades.
COVID-19 has given us the time to introspect and emphasize how making our economy dependent on burning fossil fuels is slowly killing us all. Now is the time to put a price on carbon so the people of Jalandhar and their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren can see the Dhauladhar mountains everyday for centuries to come.
Call it the Green New Deal. Call it carbon mitigation. Call it whatever you want, but understand this. Without it, we are doomed to perish — every last one of us — just as surely as the dinosaurs did long ago.
The need is urgent and the time is short. We must get started and there is no time like the present covid pandemic to act. We are at an inflection point and may never have a better chance to preserve life as we know it than we do this very moment.
All politics is local and if the people will lead, their leaders will follow — eventually.
Reference- Clean Technica, NASA, Nature, National Geographic, The New York Times