Climate Change is Going to Make COVID-19 Look Like Just a Trailer of What Really Awaits Us.

Climate change is threatening human lives as it disrupts the essential ingredients of good health – clean air, safe drinking water, wholesome food and shelter. It can scar decades of progress in global health. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that an additional 250,000 people are expected to die each year between 2030 and 2050 from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, water-borne diseases and heat stress alone.

Countries with weak health infrastructures will be the least able to respond as damage costs are estimated to be between USD 2-4 billion per year by 2030.

How is this happening???

Here are a few facts no one talks about…

• Virgin rainforests are being destroyed in Amazon to produce commodities like soy, palm oil and feed cattle. Our food choices have been manipulated into economic gains for which nature is paying the price.
  

• According to a study from Stanford University that focused on contact between humans and primates, the destruction of forests into smaller patches is increasing the probability that viruses and other pathogens will jump from wild animals to humans.
  

• COVID-19 patients in regions with high levels of air pollution are more likely to die from the infection than those in cleaner parts of the world, as stated by a recent Harvard study.
  

• Habitats are changing faster than species can adapt like earlier blooming times for plants and changes in animal territories. This leads to faster extinction of various species of both kinds.
  
  Reports show that this year native black bears emerged almost a month earlier than usual. This issue could lead hungry bears into conflicts with humans as they desperately search for food.
  
  Climate change also impacts turtle nesting sites by altering temperatures of sand where the eggs are laid. This affects the sex of hatchlings.
  
  Furthermore, WWF revealed a decrease of 53% in the population of monarch butterflies in the 2019-2020 Mexico wintering season compared to last season. The area of forest occupied by monarch butterflies was just 7 acres, down from 15 acres compared to last year.

• As more CO2 is released into the atmosphere, oceans become more acidic posing a major problem for coral reefs.
  

• Sea levels are rising due to the melting of the polar ice caps leading to severe weather events. This causes shortages of fresh water and lowers our ability to produce food. It increases the number of deaths from floods, storms and heatwaves and increases the severity of wildfires which Australia witnessed last year.

The main reason for global warming is the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal, which emits greenhouse gases into the atmosphere—mostly carbon dioxide.

But if we cut greenhouse-gas emissions now, scientists still say that the effects will continue as large masses of water and ice take hundreds of years to respond to changes in temperature and it takes CO2 decades to reduce in the atmosphere.

Just as COVID-19 commands us to act now to save lives in the upcoming weeks, climate change requires urgent efforts to be prioritised now to avoid a future global disaster.

But, How do we move ahead???

The current and urgent focus obviously needs to be flattening the curve and saving lives. But, governments now need to be thinking about the most practical recovery as we emerge from this crisis.

WHO supports countries in building climate-resilient health systems that help in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through better transport, plant-based food and energy choices.

Governments should now integrate climate change as a core economic strategy. Only clean energy and pollution-free related investments offering the best economic growth should be priority and the future investment decisions should honor the Paris agreement.

In short, banks should not finance companies engaging in burning fossil fuels but instead lend for projects that promote the creation of clean renewable energy sources. Then the growth and jobs would lean towards creating a clean environment, new ways of transport, sustainable homes, better agriculture and efficient water management.

Fresh agricultural techniques involving soil carbon and forest carbon farming can generate new sources of revenue for farmers. The carbon trading from these activities is projected to be about hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years.

Governments must support these solutions and new sources of growth so that jobs can be harvested now and keep farmers and regional communities thriving on their land.

We currently face health as well as an economic crisis but in dealing with either we cannot risk losing another generation later.

We were warned about the Coronaviruses repeatedly over the past few years. Today, we are witnessing the effects of our ignorance.
If we continue this pattern of procrastination, we may have to compromise on a lot more than just a lockdown.

Please share this article to help save the environment in a small way by bringing awareness about the same. Many species around the world are looking up to us to save their homes and their kind.

You just might help a butterfly at the other end of the world.

Click here to know more on how to avoid climate change really fast.

Photos by Markus Spiske on Unsplash and Pexels.