Cleaner Air Equals Longer Life and Blue Skies
For months now our minds have been saturated with information about the COVID virus. It’s terrible to see what the world is going through, let alone the 100,000 plus people that have died in the U.S. There are still so many unanswered questions and the world has certainly changed in year 2020, but could anything good come from COVID-19?
A few weeks ago, I was watching the news. Penguins were walking through downtown streets, lions were taking a cat nap on a warm paved road, dear, pigs, goats, coyotes wandering empty streets (mostly empty). This in itself, is more cool and interesting than good, and it kind of shows the wildlife us humans are no longer sharing, more like forcing out. It’s sad to see what we are missing, what’s all around us but we are too busy to notice or take the time to care. Here is a cute video of some of these wandering animals.
I used to wonder if real change could be accomplished. Was it possible to change the environment and slow the damage we are doing to the Earth and it’s inhabitants? Unfortunately, it took a global mandatory lockdown to bring about good, but that shouldn’t take away our hope for change to make our world a better healthier place. As the country starts to reopen, we shouldn’t forget the impact we had on the environment by consuming less natural resources. One of the biggest impacts noticed in many large cities around the world was the amount of air pollution. According to the WHO, more than 4.2 million people die annually from exposure to ambient pollution.
With the reduction of pollution, there are fewer deaths being reported in multiple countries. In Europe during the lockdown, an estimated 11,000 fewer deaths. China upwards to 70,000, and I would imagine there are thousands more across the world. Reducing pollutions not only saves the environment in which we live but our very lives.
