In the last couple of weeks, we had a chance to read how COVID-19 pandemic is, all about nature striking back to humans, who believed they subordinated nature to themselves. Is this for real though? Let’s have a look at the available information and relevant facts and make our own judgment. This will undoubtedly be an important topic for scientists in the years ahead of us and we will, for sure, get back to this topic as soon as there is much more complete information.
Think before you… tweet
The information era that we all live in, has given us the possibility to share almost unlimited amount of different content real-time. The most important generator of this content are social media channels, accessible to almost every individual. Unfortunately, we can also find incomplete or completely fake information there, creating a distorted picture of reality among the users. The media that is publishing this kind of content, without even validating it, make these problems even bigger. Long story short, in the last couple of weeks we could have read about the situation in Venice, where water has become significantly clearer and fauna has recovered out of the bloom. However, nothing but sensationalism stood behind these claims. Channels in Venice haven’t actually become less polluted, even though water is a bit clearer due the lower intensity of the water traffic, enabling sedimentation to sink to the bottom of the channels[1]. News about swans and dolphins are not true either. Swans that were filmed in Buran in Venice have been there before the start of this pandemic, while dolphins from Venice were filmed in Sardinia[2].
The news that also drew our attention is the one about the herd of elephants breaking into a village in the Juan province in China, whose residents were locked inside of their houses because of the pandemic. Photo of elephants sleeping in the fields of tea was allegedly taken after they got drunk from corn wine that they had found. However, news channels in China denied these claims. Seeing elephants in these areas is not uncommon, nevertheless this time that wasn’t the case, nor did those elephants get drunk and fall asleep in the fields.[3]
In case you haven’t met before, this above us is the sky
To expect essential changes in the environment in such a short time is not really possible. However, there have been some changes. Predrag Momčilović already wrote about lower levels of carbon dioxide in China and nitrogen oxides in Italy and China in his article “Nature and society during and after coronavirus”, which is being published in this issue of EKŽurnal. Some new information has become available to us since this article was published.
Primarily, the United States Environmental Protection Agency[4] and the European Space Agency[5] have documented a decrease in the concentration of nitrogen oxides in the USA and the number of European countries. These emissions are mainly generated by the road traffic, which has been heavily reduced due to limited movement of people. Cities such as Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Brussels, and Frankfurt had significantly lower pollution rates during the period from 5th to 25th of March, compared to the same period last year[6]. A similar trend is noticed in the United States. It has been recorded up to 60% lower traffic on the streets of California[7].
Apart from road traffic, aviation emissions will be significantly reduced due to a massive cancellation of flights. It is expected that only 20% of scheduled flights in the USA will be carried out, while the percentage for international flights will be around 10 to 20%[8]. Similar trends are present among European airlines. On March 30, 2020, there was 26 800 flights less compared to the same day the previous year, or as much as 86,9%. However, the segment of this market that has not seen a significant decline is the air transport. On the 28th of March 2020, the number of this type of flights decreased by only 2% compared to the same day in 2019.[9]
A significant decrease, practically a suspension of road and airline traffic, directly reflected on the demand and, therefore, the price of fossil fuels on the world market. Moreover, in early April 2020, the price of oil was the lowest since November 2002[10]. Lower oil production is also being expected, although Saudi Arabia claimed to increase its production capacity[11]. Part of this is because of the fact that the current price of oil is making shale oil production, so-called fracking, economically unprofitable[12].
The reduced economic activity entails a lower need for electricity, and, subsequently, the fuels used in electricity production – namely, the coal. Thus, coal consumption in China’s sixth-largest thermal power plant has fallen by as much as 40% since the last quarter of 2019[13]. On the other side of the Pacific, the USA is also seeing a dramatic decline in demand for this energy source. It is estimated that, in the short term, there will be a closure of companies and industry[14]. What kind of effects will this have on climate change and international climate politics? It’s yet to be seen.
It’s not all about the sky, there is something in the waste, too
On the other side, there are some of the consequences that can not be viewed as positive. Since the outbreak, there has been a significant growth in the use of plastic and other disposable products. This is happening in the year of the introduction of restrictive measures for the use of disposable plastic products in different countries around the world, such as France and the UK.
Since everyone is paying more attention to maintaining hygiene, plastic packing for various food products is expected to be more prevalent[15]. Starbucks is one example of a multinational company that introduced measures to increase waste to protect its employees. This company banned serving drinks in costumers cups and can now be obtained exclusively in disposable cups[16].
A drastic increase in medical waste has also been registered, which primarily includes masks and other types of protective equipment used mainly by medical personnel, and recently by the wider population as well. Hospitals are under pressure due to insufficient capacity to adequately dispose contaminated medical waste[17]. At the Wuhan province, the amount of medical waste generated by hospitals was six times higher compared to the pre-crisis period. For this reason, Chinese authorities were forced not only to build hospitals, but new facilities as well, that were intended to work solely on the proper treatment of medical waste[18].
Therefore, humanity will end this fight against the pandemic with a slightly higher air quality (which otherwise only pollutes), with a somewhat more preserved and recovered nature (which otherwise destroys) and with a little more waste (which only produces and accumulates).
Finally, will the planet and nature be in better or worse conditions after the pandemic? Time will tell. Facts, facts, facts, as well.
Ilija Jovančevć and Tatjana Avramović
Belgrade open school
Photo source: canva.com