On my way back from radio tracking raccoons for our cognition and survival study, I stopped to check-in with some rancher friends outside Laramie, WY. Their biggest news: over the past two weeks, each member of their family, young and old, has lost their job. Watching them resign themselves to the fact that the future of entire family now rests on their elderly shoulders nearly made me cry.
Driving back to town I was further saddened to see the long line of cars waiting to pick up food donations provided by local charities at the Territorial Prison State Park. We Wyomingites are not alone in our need. More than 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits over the past four weeks, eliminating nearly all job gains since the 2009 recession. Here at home, forty percent of poll respondents said they or someone they knew has lost their job. This number will rise with the drop in the price of oil.
It is clear that in the immediate future, we need to slow the spread of the coronavirus and halt the economic meltdown. The CARES Act with its more than $2 trillion in stimulus funds (including $1,200 per person and support for small businesses) is an important initial stopgap measure. It is not enough, however. We need to provide more money to individuals and small businesses, so that hard working Americans can feed their family and keep their homes (proposed by Representative Jayapal’s Paycheck Guarantee Act). That would allow us to catch our breath and prepare for the next one – the climate crisis.
The coronavirus pandemic is revealing our weaknesses, our lack of preparedness. In the words of the UN Secretary General “climate change devastation will be many times greater than [the] coronavirus pandemic”. Unless we take action now, millions of climate refugees will be displaced leading to mass migrations across the globe. In the US, some states will be simultaneously hit with fires, flooding, drought, superheating, and major storms that will cause economic disruption more severe than we experience today. Although Wyoming will be spared most of these direct consequences (except large-scale fires), we’ll likely see disruption to power, food supply, and other commodities.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said “There are many ways of going forward but only one way of standing still.” So which path forward do we take? In the wake of the Great Depression, FDR created the New Deal, which put Americans to work building our infrastructure: bridges, roads, hydro-electric dams, the electric grid, schools and hospitals. It required an investment ($6bn, or 10% of the GPD at the time) – one that repaid itself both economically and by making the United States a global superpower for decades.
Thanks to Senator Sanders and others, we too have a roadmap for rebuilding our physical infrastructure and social programs after this pandemic is over. To many, the Green New Deal may seem like a utopian dream. But our past, and the huge technological strides of the present (renewable energy, communications, biotechnology, automation) illustrate that we can re-imagine the Green New Deal into a coordinated and actionable plan that, like its predecessor, will result in rebuilding our country, while addressing the looming climate crisis. In Wyoming we’ve already started down this path as the cities of Jackson and Laramie pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030 and 2050.
But implementing a comprehensive federally-funded climate action won’t happen in a vacuum. The coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe like fire. Miscommunication and the lack of global coordination left us scrambling and fighting over crucial tests and protective gear. It led to delayed responses and a high death toll. To face the challenges of the future, all countries will need to work together. Here again we have a roadmap – the Paris Climate Accord. In 2015 (in an Op-Ed in the Boomerang) we wrote “most remarkable about these transparent talks was the participation of non-governmental organizations. Alongside mayors, governors and heads of state, there were numerous advocacy and observer groups as well as executives from large businesses and corporations. Together they conveyed the message: climate action is an opportunity, not a burden.” I believe it is as true today as it was then.
If we follow these paths, we will Rescue our people and economy, Re-imagine our future, and Rebuild our lives.