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#donaldtrump
#joebiden
#community
#election2024
#ukraine
#abortion
#russia
#republicans
#media
#cartoon
#elections
#maga
#israel
#dailykoselections
#democrats
#climatechange
#trumptrial
#mikejohnson
#law
#trial
#vladimirputin
#florida
#culture
#climate
#openthread
#hushmoney
#immigration
#election
#marjorietaylorgreene
#senate
Pandemic is Climate Change
by
demgoon
Community
(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Wednesday, Apr. 22, 2020
Wednesday, Apr. 22, 2020
at
7:58:24am PDT
Carbon capture device (traditional)
EARTH DAY
I fully expected this election year to be full of repeated squawks and heated zeep-scolds about the imminent challenges we face to our wounded planet and the importance of planting trees and rejoining the Paris Agreement. Instead we get a *pandemic*? What fun is that?
Bear with me here, but I believe that Covid-19 can be overlaid with Climate Change. More appropriately, the *Anthropocene,* defined as "the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment." The Cornoavirus isn't exactly spoken in the same breath as nuclear waste or acid rain, but it should be and I'll tell you why.
Walk into one of those "wet markets" and you'll see results of an exploding human population bumping elbows and filling bellies with a corresponding animal population that's running out of room to exist. Whether it's a poorly regulated food supply in China, clearcutting land for beef in Brazil or sloppy drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, a common denominator for the Anthropocene is too many people living and working and exploiting nature in places where they're not biologically meant to do so.
When wetlands are drained and dredged, we remove nature's spongy barriers that have been there to protect us from storm surge. Let's call that Climate Change. When we pave lowlands to build big McMansions that get catastrophically flooded in the third once-in-a-century storm of this decade, let's call that Climate Change. When a naturally-occurring disease skips from a boiled pangolin or broiled bat to a hungry human? Let's call that Climate Change.
I don't know if the Earth knows that it's 'pushing back,' but I bet that's what's happening. The world's hunter gatherer tribes have boomed into masters of agriculture and architecture and commerce and the world is getting very small indeed. Natural processes are exacerbated and overwhelmed, and Climate Change is the bill come due.
We're barely into 2020 and pandemic has returned to cull the herd. Hurricane season is waiting on deck. Wildfires are always ready to party. Greenland is set to dump many of its glaciers into the world's ocean. The United Nations food relief chief warns of mass famine even as we dump milk, burn grain and euthanize livestock.
Call it the Anthropocene, call it Climate Change, call it Koyaanisqatsi ("life out of balance")... just don't call it normal. Humans didn't invent volcanos or ice ages or floods or mass extinction events, but we sure haven't achieved total mastery over the Earth. I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to.
Cut back on eating beef. Check your ingredients for "mass balance" palm oil. Don't develop neighborhoods where there isn't enough water. KEEP OIL IN THE GROUND. Protect the birds and the bees and the bats. Stop calling it a "hoax." Plant a tree. Hug a tree. Stop using single-use drinking straws and grocery bags. Support light rail and bike lanes. Educate yourself and others.
Happy Earth Day!