COVID-19 And The Environment
Samprikta Bose
We are now in the month of June — on the 5th of which we celebrated World Environment Day. If we go back some days, we witnessed one of the most atrocious incidents – the killing of a pregnant elephant by inserting crackers inside a pineapple. If we go back further, to a couple of months before, there was the death of many animals at the Sarovar Lake during the Chhath Puja. After all of this, this year, the theme of the Environment Day is ‘Celebrating Biodiversity’. What an irony, isn’t it? Not only that, animals that come into our localities and die everyday, while we have destroyed their habitats.
It is not about occasion, it is about us, our consciousness, and care. For a fact, we know that the environment does not differentiate between humans, and somewhere deep inside, we also know that COVID-19, the lockdown, restricting our activities are somehow striking a balance. Humans had started thinking of ourselves as superior than all other beings on the Earth. We cut trees, burnt forests, and much more, with the ozone layer having depleted. We forget that our concern for the environment must be above all of this. This situation is pointing fingers at ourselves – when our activities are restricted, the environment breathes again.
We have seen a drastic improvement in air quality in the country, as transport was prohibited, industries were asked to stop functioning — all bringing down their emission rates. Delhi is one of the biggest examples of this. There is a regular fall of AQI levels below 20 and the average concentration of PM 2.5 has plunged by 71% after lockdown has begun. Busy metropolises like Delhi, Kolkata, and Beijing saw clearer skies, bird songs were louder. Ganga, the river based on which India and Bangladesh could suitably carry on with most of their agriculture, was polluted like anything. During the lockdown however, the water quality of the river has improved and in Haridwar it can even be used for drinking again. The critically endangered Ganges dolphins or South Asian dolphins were spotted again in Kolkata after as long as 30 years. There has been a huge rise in the number of flamingos that migrate to Mumbai. Locally, we can see more birds coming to trees, the humming of bees have increased. In fact, the day our Prime Minister asked us to light lamps and candles as a “sign of unity”, and when not only lamps but crackers too were lit, air pollution shot up by multiple folds. This points out how we need scientific approaches and not superstition to combat this pandemic and save nature as well.
During the time of the pandemic itself, Bengal faced the super cyclone Amphan and everything was messed up again. It’s a known fact that storms and cyclones have increased because of our ruthlessness towards nature, but it’s us who are trying to improve. When on one side for their own selfish interests the lungs of the Earth — the Amazon forests were burnt, on the other, student activists of progressive organisations like ours have come out on the streets to raise our voice against the ongoing climate crisis. In some days, the lockdown will be lifted and industries will be functional again; human activities will increase.
The lockdown will have to be lifted because on one side, when the health of the environment is improving, on the other hand, another creation of nature, human beings are suffering. Migrant labourers are dying, several people are losing their jobs, unemployment is on the rise, and there is a food security crisis. The government, most definitely, is not doing enough.
Let me bring into view the Environmental Justice Atlas:
“The environmental justice atlas documents and catalogues social conflict around environmental issues.
Across the world communities are struggling to defend their land, air, water, forests and their livelihoods from damaging projects and extractive activities with heavy environmental and social impacts: mining, dams, tree plantations, fracking, gas flaring, incinerators, etc.”
The rich and the capitalists have had more access to resources, making the poorer sections suffer. The Environment Justice Atlas came into concept when people started demanding justice for the Ecological Conflict. Interestingly, it is in sync with most of the ideas of socialism. It says that if resources are not equally distributed, the rich become richer and the poor become poorer.
In the context of the pandemic, economist Madhura Swaminathan’s arguments strike a chord. She points out that for better combating this crisis, the government must take care of the undernourished and provide them with sufficient ration and other resources. This will not only help flattening the COVID-19 curve, but also contribute positively towards the environment.
Acclaimed environmentalist Vandana Shiva also talks about the condition of the environment and biodiversity in the context of the pandemic. She says though the coronavirus was not the creation of humans, pandemics and cyclones are on the rise due to increased anthropogenic activities. As we are degrading the environment, and biodiversity is declining by the day, the frequency and the number of diseases and calamities are also going up. She says that if we don’t work towards protecting the environment and its biodiversity, the mutation of viruses and germs will take place increasingly, which will, naturally, lead to more fatal diseases.
Nonetheless, the lockdown can’t be a permanent, long term solution and by environment, we mean both biotic and abiotic factors. At the same time, it is important to show our concern towards the planet. We have to replant the trees that have been uprooted. We will give back the forests we have destroyed; we will get the Sundarbans back to life and once again, they will be filled with crocodiles, mangroves and tigers.
It is important to follow Sustainable Development. Only then can we live our lives better and so can our future generations. We have been mis-utilising the environment and its resources inexplicably to meet our own greeds. It’s high time we realise that when there will be no animals, plants left, food and drinkable water left, we will not be able to eat money. We have learnt from the environment itself that it exists for our needs, and this time we will also save it for our own good, so that one day, we will be able to wish ourselves a “happy World Environment Day”, from our hearts.
Samprikta Bose is a student at the Department of Environmental Science, University of Calcutta.
The views expressed here are the author’s own and are not necessarily the journal’s.
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