COVID-19 and Climate Change: Why Renewable Energy is More Important Now than Ever

April 14, 2020

The unthinkable has happened. Other than the earth spinning on its axis, the world has pretty much come to a standstill. As the world population is holding its breath, the earth is sighing with relief as it is finally getting a break from all the man-made toxins being pumped into the air, oceans and soil.

It seems like the global pandemic of COVID-19 has achieved something no climate action or any climate activist has been able to do – force people to change the way they live.

Many questions are to be considered though. Are these changes going to have long-lasting effects? What does climate change and Covid-19 have in common? And just what part will society have to play to lead our planet through this crisis and the ones that are sure to follow? Can Renewable Energy be the answer?

How has our Planet been Affected by the Coronavirus Pandemic?

1. How the Harnessing of Cleaner Energy Started?

For decades people have been fighting for cleaner and more sustainable practices the world over. The human race started harnessing the power of the sun as early as 7^th Century BC. People were using the sun to start fires with magnifying glasses. Lanterns were lit by early Greeks and Romans for religious ceremonies using the sun. Then, in 1876, William Grylls and his student Richard Day, discovered that when selenium is exposed to light, it produces electricity.

Around 1860 we started using coal as a power source for crude oil consumption. In the 1880’s, natural gas production took off as well. No one could have foreseen the implications of using fossil fuels as our main energy source, or the complications this would have for our planet later on.

By the time the first usable photovoltaic cells were developed by Bell Labs in America in 1954, we were already dependent on the cheaper, and already developed fossil fuel market. During the second part of the Industrial Revolution, in the early 1900s, we became accustomed to automobiles and electricity, all of which was already running by the use of fossil fuels. Many people, including President Jimmy Carter (who even put solar panels on the Whitehouse), tried to lead people into more sustainable energy practices. No one was particularly convinced or moved. Economies were booming and the amount of money made by the fossil fuel industry coupled with the fact that technology, such as solar was still very expensive, no one saw the point in changing their way of life.

2. Scientists discover problems:

As scientists started discovering that the impact of emissions and the human way of life were creating a problem, conversations regarding the climate started happening more often. Most of these fell on deaf ears, however. The climate movement was struggling to get anyone to listen to the science, until we entered the 2000’s. Slight changes started happening, such as the change in seasonal patterns, floods and storms hitting all around the globe – people were forced to at least take some notice however fleeting it might have been.

The world in large part did not seem to care much until, in more recent years, catastrophes started hitting close to everyone’s home. No longer were the disasters confined to islands or far off coast lines, it was happening in our own back yards. From devastating floods claiming many lives, to wildfires across the globe destroying forests and wildlife, to more volcanic eruptions and unbearable temperature changes.

People couldn’t ignore it anymore.

As the climate movement picked up steam in 2019 many thought we would finally be able to start affecting true change. That people would come together to try and keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C a year. Agreements were struck by governments to change their energy strategy to renewables and conferences were hosted worldwide by the World Health Organisation. The planet’s future seemed to be a lot brighter.

3. A Virus Pandemic Hits:

Fast forward to January 2020. We are told there is a virus causing severe flu-like symptoms taking hold in China. We shove the information to the side-lines, it’s not affecting us… Until suddenly, it is. It is affecting us in ways we could never have even begin to imagine.

Everything else gets put on the back burner by the news. Everywhere, at all times, the global health pandemic of COVID-19 takes over all headlines. No more climate activists, protests or conferences. The wildfires in Australia and the Amazon are all but forgotten, not even to speak of the floods in the Philippines.

The world has a new enemy, and it is more real than any disaster most of us have faced in our lifetime. Not because it is overwhelmingly bad in one place, but because it is spreading across the world like wildfire. Everyone is being affected by the unseen enemy which has now arrived on almost every country’s doorstep. Unlike the threat of climate change, which seems far off in the future and unrelated to the threat to many people’s lives.

4. Emergency Measures Lock us Down… and Something Happens

Emergency measures deployed in a manner we have never before required, are being rolled out worldwide. Inevitably, one by one, within days and hours of each other, governments have started closing borders, restricting travel, enforcing social distancing, and inevitably this is almost always followed by lockdown. While people all over the globe are struggling to even begin to accept what is happening, the planet has been given a break. Due to absolute minimal use of fossil fuels, attributed mostly, to the shutdown of the industrial sector and the restriction of movement in the transport sector, the amount of Co2, No2 and other poisonous gasses have been declining rapidly.

We have started to see what is possible if we were to rely on mostly sustainable energy and the results have been breath-taking in some instances. This is what earth would be like if we stopped using fossil fuels but used solar power, wind power and hydro power. If we were mainly focused on sustainable forms of energy, we wouldn’t have to stay under lockdown to fix what has gone wrong on our planet. From wild animals returning to areas that they had long abandoned, to clear skies in cities where the smog has been so thick for so long that people have almost forgotten what it looked like.

Just what do these changes mean for the future of our planet?

Coronavirus and Climate Change: What We are Learning about Our Planet’s Future

Not Only People, but the Global Economy get Hit as well

We sat glued to our screens; computers, phones, and tv’s. We noticed the numbers worldwide climbing as the infected kept rising. However, those weren’t the only numbers catching our attention. The other numbers scrawling over our screens were spiraling downward, the stock market crashing – not just was the South African Rand losing value, but so were all the other currencies.

The news of oil wars between Russia and the Middle East broke through as well. Oil became almost worthless. We realized that we would be faced with some of the worst economic challenges of our lifetime, and due to the coronavirus spread, it is bound to become a recession to beat unlike any that came before.

Governments have started injecting funds to try and save what they can, with small businesses being hit the hardest. Funding packages are being rolled out for those less fortunate. In some countries, banks have been injecting billions to try and keep their economy stable, but that, we know, can only keep the economy going for so long.

One way or another, we all know that we are in trouble.

It’s War against Unseen Enemies in an Effort to Protect our Future

For the first time in history, the world is fighting a common enemy – no country will be spared from the dire effects of this virus. There is however another war that, in light of this current pandemic, seems distant and small – the Climate Crisis. These two crises have suggestive similarities in that both will require vast levels of global cooperation and will demand changes in our current behaviour in the name of reducing suffering in the future. With people dying and their financial future hanging by a thread, it is hard to focus on anything else that might lie ahead. The world is stuck in this nightmare that seems unreal and the only thing we are focused on right now is minimising the current damage.

Every problem relating to the future is pushed to the back-burner:

Governments have already been pushing back against previously made commitments to green energy, in order to save their economies.
Every big conference regarding climate change has been canceled, with no attempts to even reschedule or do them online.
There has been a massive uptake in single-use plastics, for hygiene and medical equipment reasons.

The list could go on indefinitely and the implications that this will leave us with in the future are enormous. Scientists from around the globe have already tried extremely hard to make us aware that, if we do not do something about the climate crisis very soon, the current pandemic is merely a glimpse of what is to come.

Climate Change and Infectious Diseases

Scientist have pointed out that, even though we cannot draw a direct link between the coronavirus and climate change, the changes in infectious disease patterns are likely a major consequence of climate change. There are a number of ways in which climate change has exacerbated the spread of disease:

The more we increase in numbers, the more food supply we need as a human race. Agriculture is the number one reason for deforestation. Other reasons are the need for timber for the building industry, the production of paper and even products you would never expect, like toothpaste, medication and paints. As we keep cutting down our forests, we are minimising the space available for many animals. As these animals move, they end up near our farm animals, pets and ultimately people. These animals carry diseases that we have not yet been exposed to.
The fact that the polar ice caps are melting, is causing a similar effect. Starving animals are migrating and bringing new diseases into more populated areas.
The melting permafrost in places like Russia is releasing gasses that have been locked in over many millennia. These include Co2 and No2. Even more worrisome is the fact that there are, as yet, undiscovered pathogens that have been trapped in the ice being freed every day. We have no immunity built up against these ancient superbugs. Our systems would not know how to fight them.
As populations increase so does the need for food production. Where there are too many people in areas around the globe with lacking or unaffordable animal products, people turn to unusual sources. The consumption of these animals lead to various viral outbreaks, which we can trace back to epidemics such as Swine flu, Bird flu and COVID-19.
As the need for space increases, wild animal populations are living side by side with our domesticated food animals. This has led to not only increased infections of the animals themselves, but also in the human population. The perfect example would be TB in South Africa and Rabies in Britain. Unfortunately this also leads to increased parasite burdens which result in both human and animal suffering.
The intense changes in weather patterns are leaving some areas even more vulnerable than they had previously been. Increasing mosquito populations in tropical areas on continents like Africa and South America, has cause a marked growth uptake in infections of diseases such as Malaria, Zika Virus, and Rift Valley Fever.

Is there a way out of this? Is there a way we can move forward with less disease, healthier food, clean air and a balanced ecosystem troubled by less disasters? The answer lies in a dramatic shift in awareness at global level regarding the need to fully understand how climate change is affecting disease and the filtering down of this understanding to local levels. Once this is understood countries will be better equipped to make the necessary decisions when it comes to the implementation of renewable energy – as it is one of the most effective tools in our arsenal in the fight against climate change. There is undoubtedly a connection between energy choices, human health and climate change. It is suggested that energy changes could reduce environmental problems associated with climate change while it could at the same time address the high burdens of disease that impact populations around the world.

Fighting Climate Change with Solar Power and Turning the World Around

Planet’s Earth Closest Star

Our sun is a thermonuclear fusion reaction and its temperature runs as high as 14 000 000°C. That is an intense amount of energy. Every single day, the sun gives us 35 000 times the amount of energy needed by everyone who uses electricity today.

Since the sun has been burning for nearly 4.5 Billion years and is only halfway through its gas resources, we have no need to worry about its sustainability compared to fossil fuels. We only have approximately 50 years oil left, 55 years’ worth of gas and at most a 100 years left regarding our coal resources. (https://theplanets.org/the-sun/). Not only have these recourses become more scarce, but they have become more expensive, which means that in their final years they will become almost unaffordable. Our planet today only uses about 1% of the sun’s energy – why is that?

The Cost of a Renewable Future

Since the cost of solar has fallen around 99% since 1977, we should surely be implementing a much larger portion of it. When people point out that the cost of installing solar is high, what they don’t consider is that Solar Energy is still far cheaper than fossil fuels when everything is considered. The cost of building a new fossil-fuel power plant is significantly higher and, considering that our fossil fuel options are not sustainable and will eventually run out, why would we not rather build solar plants? Not only is it far most cost effective in the long run, but it is also the fastest energy source to deploy (and there are moveable modules).

Consider the effects of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017. It took Tesla a matter of weeks to set up a solar storage facility to power their main hospital. No other power source, fossil fuel or renewable, could have been set up in such a small amount of time and brought online as quickly.

South African Emissions

South Africa as it currently stands, is the 13th highest emissions producer in the world, which is fairly alarming considering our size. That leaves us ahead of countries such as France, the UK, Italy and Spain.

If we continue down this path, our planet simply will not survive. As the statistics show, since we have signed the Paris agreement to bring the average of global heating down to under 1.5°C, our emissions have instead kept skyrocketing.

Renewable Energy is our Only Option to Tackle Climate Change

If we do not implement renewable energy, but continue burning all of our fossil fuels, almost all of our ice in the polar regions will melt, causing a 200 feet rise in sea levels. A rise which will mean that many of the coastal cities worldwide will be consumed by the ocean. We will keep pumping Sulphur Dioxide into the air, causing acid rain worldwide that will ruin our food resources and all other kinds of harmful particular matter which will continue to contaminate the air we breathe.

We need now, more than ever to take into account every single renewable option available to us and apply every resource we can find. In the long run, not only will these efforts help reduce our emissions but it will create new job opportunities and a much healthier living environment for every being on the planet. As the lockdowns during coronavirus proved, the earth can heal itself fairly quickly if we give it a fighting chance.

Each individual has a responsibility to ensure there is a planet for our future generation:

We need to hold our governments accountable to the green agreements and promises that they have made.
We need to keep the conversations going and make sure that awareness is raised and that we listen to the best available science.
Finally, we must each reduce our own carbon footprint, as individuals, by implementing sustainable energy solutions available to us.

We can still fix this – You can still fix this!