7 Things We Can Keep Doing for the Climate After the Pandemic
We’ve all been engaging in a global CO2 emissions experiment. It doesn’t have to end
Are we done with being at home?
We’ve explored every cranny and mended every drape in our houses and apartments. And now with a few more degrees of warmth in the air and the rising possibility of a shot or two in our arms, many of us are thinking about the open road.
But before your finger actually hits the buy button on that online reservation, it might be worth taking a pause and considering what staying home has done for the planet. In spite of all of its miseries 2020 was the year our country finally went on a climate diet, cutting its CO2 emissions by a significant ten percent. Of course, no one would want to repeat this harrowing experiment. But we can’t deny that climate-impactful behavior changes took place in 2020.
And the world desperately needs the US to continue that diet. Every year the average American puts five times the greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere as a citizen of slim, trim France, and more than ten times the amount as a resident of India. And so, as a kind of normal returns, it’s worthwhile to look back at the most powerful changes we made; changes that could be maintained without derailing the…
