Always a bright side

While it’s easy to focus on the negative during this pandemic, there are many positive environmental changes that are happening globally because of the recent decrease in human activity. For instance, China, one of the first places to detect COVID-19, has experienced many of these changes. 

Wuhan, China was a hotspot for COVID-19 in late January; however, China took matters into its own hands and declared a lockdown for 76 days, prohibiting people from leaving their houses. Eventually, on March 25th, the Chinese government ended the lockdown and began to resume trains, highways, and planes. 

The switch to keep everyone inside was drastically different compared to the normally bustling and busy urban life in Wuhan. As a city known as the transportation capital of China, it’s naturally a busy place with constant commotion. Nevertheless, because of the vast amount of people, businesses, and factories in Wuhan, there is a heavy amount of air pollution. 

However, during the 10-week lockdown, the environment was working its own magic. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the levels of nitrogen dioxide, a common pollutant that mainly comes from the burning of fossil fuels, went down by about 30%. These chemicals can cause major health problems such as asthma attacks, heart attacks, respiratory issues, and it causes about 1.1 million deaths per year in China. While many people are still stressed or sick because of COVID-19, the decrease in pollution has proved to be beneficial for the environment. 

Additionally, the European Space Agency released a video that evidenced how air pollution vastly decreased in China as they were in lockdown. Marshall Burke, a professor from Stanford, announced that around 77,000 children and elderly from China were saved from air pollution for the duration of lockdown. 

While less air pollution might be a small positive in the wake of the darkness of the pandemic, slowly but surely it will create long-term environmental changes that help people as well. It’s easy to be pessimistic about the current situation, but it’s important to know that there is always a bright side that can spark optimism, even during a global pandemic.