A Rehearsal for Global Warming
By Albert B. Kelly
When I was young, I enjoyed playing football at Bridgeton
High School. Among the lessons I learned was the value of practice and
rehearsing. Coaches would create different game scenarios and we players would
rehearse how to react. Each player had a role and assignment they were
responsible for whether blocking an opposing player or running a specific
route. The more we rehearsed, the better we reacted, and the more successful we
were.
As we make our way through the Covid-19 pandemic, I can’t
help but to think that what we’re doing and feeling in response to this
pandemic is a sort of dress rehearsal for climate change and global warming.
Part of that sense comes from the fact that what we’re facing is truly global.
As obvious as that seems, and completely separate from how well or poorly a
given country has responded to the crisis, it is worth noting that the entire
globe is dealing with this pandemic at the same exact time. So it is with climate
change and global warming.
Another point worth noting is the fact that we’re going to
have to work together to come back from this pandemic. Whether in the area of
medicine and epidemiology or as it relates to economic recovery, we are
interconnected and regardless of how we might feel about that, we are going to
have to work together to get back on our feet and get our respective countries
and peoples back to working and living together productively.
Scientists have also been commenting of late on the impacts
of stay-at-home orders in various places including a decrease in certain
pollutants, less respiratory problems, cleaner air, wildlife moving in and
taking over in certain places, and similar changes since this pandemic changed
how we move through each day. It is an experiment on a grand scale that short
of a global pandemic would never have happened. This might be a tiny glimpse
into what could be accomplished if we acted in unison.
The one huge difference between this global pandemic and
global warming and climate change is the fact that we will have vaccines and
medications to treat the virus so that its impacts are lessened and we can go
back to some degree of normal whereas with climate change and global warming,
there are no such fixes. With climate change and global warming, we will have
to fundamentally change the way we live and pass those changes on for many
generations to come. And hope we’ve done enough.
If there is one potential silver lining to come out of this
pandemic, it may be the fact that all countries and all peoples have gotten a
firsthand taste of what a global problem feels like locally. And beyond the
“global-ness” of the problem, all nations have gotten a chance to see what
happens when countries don’t work together and each adheres to a different set
of standards and protocols.
This global pandemic has laid waste to economies in every
country. Much the same will happen with climate change and global warming. This
pandemic has impacted healthcare systems in every country. Similarly, global
warming and climate change, as it affects different parts of the world, will
help unleash new bacteria and novel viruses that will strain healthcare systems
to the breaking point. The pandemic has exposed weaknesses in our global supply
chain. Global warming and climate change will create new vulnerabilities.
The very “global-ness” of what we’re now going through is in
so many ways a rehearsal for what will happen if we don’t get serious about
addressing global warming and climate change and insist that our elected
officials and industry leaders get equally as serious in mitigating the impacts.
We are good at dealing with events that have a clear beginning and an obvious
ending. Not so much those things that alter life as we know it for generations
to come.
Finally, we’ve taken measures such as staying home, wearing
masks, and observing social distancing simply to slow the spread of the virus to
buy time while waiting for medicine and science to catch up. In the spirit of the
dress rehearsal, we would do well to lower carbon emissions, lessen greenhouse
gases and take other steps to buy time and slow the spread of climate change
and global warming so that science and technology can catch up.