Earth Day at 50: Galloping global pandemic, lumbering climate crisis

Today is the 50^th anniversary of Earth Day. It is a big day for me because the first Earth Day in 1970 was my inauguration as a young environmentalist — or “conservationist” as we called ourselves back then. That cool spring day in Syracuse, I led the Earth Day celebration at my middle school — a tame affair that involved picking up litter, planting trees, and reporting on the work of our newly formed “Conservation Club.” It’s not that the problems weren’t serious then — Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River had caught on fire, there was lung-crippling smog in Los Angeles and toxic wastes leaking into homes from Love Canal near Buffalo. But the challenges tended to be local, and progress was measured from the bottom up — a sewage treatment plant here, an air pollution scrubber there. A popular bumper sticker at the time captured it well: “Think Globally, Act Locally.”

Fast forward 50 years and we find ourselves with not one but two global emergencies requiring massive global action, in addition to heavy lifting at the local level. The first is a new, fast-moving virus that within weeks has threatened billions across the planet, with radically different death counts depending on response times measured in days.

The second emergency is older and slower moving — a decades-long rise in global temperatures that is becoming increasingly deadly as our climate-driven weather gets more extreme, with massive floods in North and South Carolina, deadly tornadoes in Mississippi and unprecedented wildfires in California.

As we shelter in place, Earth Day’s 50^th anniversary gives us a moment to reflect simultaneously on a galloping global pandemic and a lumbering climate crisis.

The pandemic is a wake-up call for a planet that increasingly will have to fight multiple global emergencies. Imagine New York City, now struggling to keep up with COVID-19 infections, and then a hurricane as destructive as Sandy roars into town. Or California is fighting another string of wildfires and shutting down electric grids, just as a potent new virus erupts, requiring social distancing of tens of thousands of evacuees and further straining emergency medical services. This is standard stuff in apocalyptic novels, but it now sounds a lot more plausible.

In battling simultaneous emergencies, we have to strike a smart balance between short-term and long-term actions. Of course, current global attention must be first and foremost on conquering today’s rampaging virus. But we can’t afford to stop making progress on climate change. The November conference of the 175 parties to the Paris climate agreement has already been cancelled due to COVID-19. Why not move it online — like many other key government and private sector groups have done in the past month? (And come inauguration day, maybe a new President will make the U.S. a leader again in implementing the Paris accord.)

The good news is that we know a great deal about how to fight these world-wide crises. Our best and brightest in global health — from government, industry and universities — are racing to develop effective vaccines, rapid testing, and new treatments for COVID-19. Meanwhile, we are making serious progress in the development and deployment of low-carbon and lower-cost technologies — from giant wind farms in Iowa and fast-growing solar installations in North Carolina, to economy-wide energy efficiency upgrades in Massachusetts, carbon capture projects in Texas, and small modular nuclear reactors in Idaho.

A cooler planet with more livable cities and healthier ecosystems will be in a stronger position to fight public health emergencies, especially where contagions are involved. And a better organized and funded public health system will be more equipped to address the next hurricane or flood that leaves cities and rural areas alike confronting death and disease, especially in low-income populations.

Finally, with an economy in free fall, we need to put people back to work, as soon as it is safe. The U.S. clean energy industry — in companies large and small — is a smart place to focus. It has taken a recent hit, like many other businesses, but with the rising climate imperative and falling costs of clean energy technologies, this is a critical 21^st century industry. China has made that bet, and we should as well, if only to strengthen U.S. competitiveness.

I won’t be around for the 100^th anniversary of Earth Day, but my kids will. I am hopeful that they’ll look back at 2020 and give us boomers some credit for having taken a more global — and aggressive — approach to our related health and environmental emergencies.

Dan Reicher is a lecturer and senior research scholar at Stanford University. He was previously director of climate and energy initiatives at Google,  Department of Energy assistant secretary and chief of staff in the Clinton administration, and a member of the Obama administration’s transition team and secretary of energy advisory board.