CLIMATE CHANGE: DOES A PANDEMIC CHANGE THE WAY WE SEE IT?
by: Al Faiz Alif Yudhistira
The coronavirus or The COVID-19 has been circling around the globe since December of 2019 and it has been on the headline of every international mass media platform, ranging from CNN, BBC, ABCnews, even local Indonesian news platform like detikcom, Kompas, and The Jakarta Post. Really, coronavirus is driving everyone crazy, including me. The coronavirus itself considered as a “new” type of virus which originated from Wuhan, China because it’s the place where the very first infected people come from. Ever since the coronavirus labeled as a global pandemic by the WHO (World Health Organization) on 11th March 2020, individuals including the government of a country has been commanding this specific policy for everyone—“social and physical distancing” and “work from home”, this act as a tangible measure to prevent and slow down the spread of coronavirus. Then, what’s with climate change? Why I bring up this topic? Here’s a little story of mine.
It was a gloomy afternoon, I was sitting on my porch, scrolling through Twitter, Instagram, even TikTok. After a few scrolls, I stumbled upon something that caught my eyes, I was seeing this post on Twitter about how the canals in Venice gets clearer—even dolphins are showing up, I also found this video on TikTok where people in London can actually see the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Amazing? Maybe yes, maybe no. Ever since people throughout the world are practicing social and physical distancing as well as working from home, it is actually showing a clearer sky—air pollution and heat trapping emissions appear to be down. People doesn’t consume gas the way before, less driving, less flying, less gathering, even China’s pollution were decreasing. It’s amazing to actually see how the world changes, even just a little bit—by clearer sky. It seems unbelievable how a complex system of human activities which ruling our climate changes immediately within a snap of a finger—rapidly. Then, this is the time where big question mark shows up; does a pandemic really change the way we see climate change?
It might change the way we see it, temporarily. We might could predict how the world will go after this—normally. People go back to their routine, using cars, meetings and gathering, factories will continue to operate normally as produce gas emissions as before. It’s the “hard to swallow pill” when it comes to fixing global warming because changing our habits from using conventional resources such as coal is not an easy thing to do, transition to a greener technology isn’t as easy and as cheap as we thought. The skepticism of climate change from some major international actors are also act as an indicator where climate change and environmental matters still aren’t the focus of the international world. A major transition from conventional energy to greener energy believed to be more expensive and could jeopardize international economics.
The only thing to do is to build awareness on how actually climate affects us, not only in present time but also for future time, hence we need urgent action on climate. The coronavirus pandemic will not last forever, it will disappear, somehow. And this event—tragedy should trigger us to believe and take concern more on climate crisis. The pandemic and climate crisis have one thing in common, which is fear. It terrifies everyone in the world—on a different way, but it actually to be frank—is the same. Coronavirus terrifies people on how the virus could make the lung works inefficiently and somehow could lead to death, it is the same for climate change! It could affect the weather, the earth temperature, even a more often natural disaster such as the rising level of water and cyclone. Both of these problems end with one thing, casualties, lots of casualties.
The silver lining that we can take from both tragedies is that we have to change our social norms, our social behavior. Such as spend less time outside, reduce the use of cars, motorcycles, or even unnecessary consumption of electricity. It won’t be easy either for us to change our habits, but if a pandemic can change the way we interact, the way we see our normal social life, then why the climate crisis can’t? We should make the same shift in attitudes towards fossil fuels, driving gas-guzzlers. And, more importantly, because climate change is a systemic problem too—which deeply rooted into politicians who uphold the status quo, we have to change our attitudes also to them on how alarming climate crisis actually is. As a youth whose dreaming about a better future for humankind, we can—and must—choose to fix global warming. As what I quote from Master Jedi Yoda from the movie Star Wars;
“do or do not, there is no try”
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