The Bright side of the Pandemic:

The Covid-19 pandemic will be remembered as one of the most terrible events in human history, with a death toll of 4.55 million in 2020 alone and serious economic repercussions. It’s hard to believe such an event can have a bright side. Yet as nations all over the world went into lockdown and we humans stayed indoors hiding from our microscopic foe, the planet had a rare opportunity to heal in our absence. The skies cleared and the noise of vehicles ceased to exist. The period in lockdown was a rare occurrence where we could observe what the environment would be like with minimal human intervention.

Air travel for a large part of 2020 and has stayed at all-time lows throughout the pandemic

The results were positive with significant drops in emission and pollution levels. As most forms of travel ceased and the planes no longer took to the skies, global emission levels fell to an all-time low. In April 2020, for the first time in decades, people in Punjab could see the Himalayas 200km away when India moved into a nation-wide lockdown. As the bustle of cities reduced and streets grew quieter, wildlife expanded their habitats to wander into urban areas. In the Chilean capital of Santiago, a wild Puma entered the city which was under lockdown on March 24th 2020. In the Italian city of Venice, a pair of dolphins were seen for the first time in years during heightened coronavirus-related restrictions in the city on March 23rd 2021. The pandemic has proven what many of us didn’t want to accept, the earth needs our absence not our help.

A wild Puma that entered Santiago city, on march 24th during the city’s coronavirus lockdown

What is surprising is not that the environment has healed, but how quickly it has healed and how clear the effects are. This unique situation proves to us that it isn’t too late to reverse the effects of more than a century of harmful human activity, and all it takes is a global effort on part of every person and the cooperation of the world’s governments for it to be achieved.

However, on the flipside, the pandemic cost the environment in ways that haven’t been publicised as much. Plastic pollution levels soared from discarded masks and packaging material, which were in high demand during the lockdowns. 2020 as a whole was not a good year for the environment as wild fires torched California and Australia, wiping out endangered wildlife and releasing tons of greenhouse gases into the air. Global lockdowns helped us avoid what would have been a catastrophic year, environmentally speaking.

By Shashank Uma Deepak