Coyotes on the Golden Gate
As we approach Earth Day
2020 - the 50th anniversary of Earth Day - we’re witnessing something amazing during our confinement. With our travel restricted by stayat-home orders, and a radically reduced number of cars on the road and planes in the air, we’re seeing a spontaneous recovery of air and water quality around the planet. With factories producing fewer goods and people taking fewer trips in the past few months, the silver lining of this pandemic is an environmental rebound like none we’ve ever seen. For the first time in a generation, residents of New Delhi, India can see the Himalayas from their homes. There are rumors of dolphins playing in the canals of Venice, Italy and the water there is clear enough now to see fish swimming. There have also been sightings of coyotes walking across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. In just one month, from February to March, air pollution in China was reduced by nearly
20% and in Europe the drop has been a staggering 60%.
Closer to home, the northeastern United States saw a 30% reduction in fossil fuel pollution when you compare February to March.
The Great Pause – this “timeout” from our 21st century lifestyle that the pandemic has imposed on us – has given us irrefutable proof of how that lifestyle affects the environment. It also demonstrates the Earth’s resilience. How quickly it can respond to a significant reduction in our human impact on the planet. We know, of course, that it’s not going to stay this way forever, that the stay-at-home order isn’t a sustainable solution to the world’s environmental problems. While there have been significant improvements in the past few months, there have also been devastating human impacts in the form of job losses and the loss of lives. And we know there’s tremendous pressure to get the country and the world “back to normal.” Back to doing what we were doing before our confinement. But we can hope that these visible, tangible, and rapid environmental improvements will influence policy makers and citizens alike when, eventually, we begin to ease all the restrictions we’re living under. Although I’m afraid it will, let’s hope that “getting back to business” doesn’t mean “business as usual,” and that “reopening the economy” doesn’t mean that we give industries free rein to return to polluting ways of production we saw in the before time.
What’s somewhat paradoxical about this pandemic is that, in some ways, the safest place to be is outside. Outdoors, nature has become a sanctuary. Yes, staying home is what’s recommended, and if you and your loved ones stay cooped up at home without any contact with the outside world, that’s the best way to avoid getting sick. But for me, and for many others, getting outdoors – going for a walk or a run – has been our refuge. Our shelter from the storm. Because for many of us, being confined to our homes is stress-inducing rather than stress-relieving, even for the most “home-bodied” among us.
From the beginning of our self-isolation and social distancing the Earth has been teaching us lessons. Because wherever we’ve gone in this strange springtime of our lives, we’ve been struck by how unaffected nature is by the pandemic. As human beings, our lives have been turned completely upside down by it. Yet, when we go outside, the birds are still singing, the grass is still growing. Right now, the lilacs up on the Swarthmore College campus are in full bloom. Before that were the cherry trees. And just a little earlier came the magnolias. And even before that, those harbingers of spring – the lenten roses and the daffodils. Remember all the way back to the daffodils? It seems like a hundred years ago when they were in bloom, but it was only about six weeks. Despite all the confusion and frustration and just plain strangeness of this time, the world, the Earth, nature have been slowly, steadily, reliably unfolding before our eyes. And what a refuge that is for all of us.
Now, we need to acknowledge that the natural world isn’t all goodness, beauty and light. After all, this virus that’s ravaging our communities is a product of nature. We know that there are plenty of dangers out there in the natural world. But, at least in its domesticated, suburbanized form, there’s a constancy to nature, a normalcy to nature, that can comfort us. In fact, right now, it’s just about the only thing in our lives that we can count on.
As we celebrate a special Earth Day this year, in a year when our lives have been so disrupted, let us give thanks to the soil, to the sky, to the flowers and the trees. And let us strive to be like the birds who turn toward the rising sun and sing.