Don’t get too comfortable with your new Normal; Climate Lockdowns might be on the way

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

Life is getting back to normal. Finally the lockdowns are over. Our world governments are finally allowing many of us to go back to living our lives the way we wanted to regardless if you are vaccinated or not.

 Has this brought you a level of comfort?

I am sure that for many of us, we are sighing with relief, but before you get too comfortable with the new normal, I would like to introduce to you the idea of climate change lockdowns.

In November of 2021, India’s Supreme Court called for a lockdown in the capital, New Delhi. Supreme Court Justices ordered authorities to halt all nonessential travel on roads in the national capital region. They also told them to close offices in the area, shifting tens of millions of people to work from home. It appears that something like this could be happening in more countries around the world.

They have ramped up the fear over climate change, and this could lead to long-term soft lockdowns. There are those in power who are calling for the equivalent of a coronavirus-pandemic-scale lockdown once every two years” to tackle climate change.

“Carbon dioxide emissions must fall by the equivalent of a global lockdown roughly every two years for the next decade for the world to keep within safe limits of global heating,” wrote The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey in March 2021. Back in November 2020, Harvey wrote that in “For most countries, government intervention is needed, either to regulate or to force people and businesses to undertake improvements.”

In November 2020, the Red Cross made the claim that climate change is a bigger threat than COVID and should be confronted with “The same urgency.” Of course the one and only Bill Gates recently demanded that something be done to prevent climate change, claiming it will be worse than the pandemic. Last year, the former Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney predicted that climate deaths would surpass those of the pandemic. Science has shown that lockdowns significantly reduced carbon emissions during 2020, and it could be the solution.

Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis developed a method using satellite measurements that allowed them to determine levels of nitrogen dioxide on a scale never before accessible. NO₂ is a key contributor to the smog associated with bad traffic or areas of intense industry.

They used the satellite measurements to compare levels of NO₂ before and during COVID-19-related lockdowns across the globe. What they found was that, although there was a significant decrease in NO₂ worldwide in areas under lockdown, there were also striking discrepancies on smaller scales.

Burning fuel primarily forms nitrogen dioxide, and researchers suggest that the COVID-related lockdowns might lead to decreases in NO₂, and in fact they did. Significantly.

Another study headed up by Hickman, J.E., K. Tsigaridis, and S.E. Bauer, 2022: “Pandemic lockdown impacts on atmospheric composition and climate are contingent on the decade and season in which they occur,” found that COVID-19 pandemic responses affected atmospheric composition and climate. These effects are historically contingent, depending on existing emission rates and planetary conditions. They used the GISS Model E Earth System Model to evaluate how atmospheric and climate impacts depend on the decade and season in which lockdowns occurred (https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/hi03300h.html)

I know the question you have now is what would climate lockdowns look like? Most likely, cities and states would begin a gradual and discrete ramp-up of restrictions. Many of us would be working from home; this could become the permanent norm if special carbon taxes are put in place. These taxes would be imposed on companies, limiting driving or air miles, and extend to individual employees. If you drive to work in a car, you might just get hit with the tax. Children could be impacted by climate lockdowns, too. Schools, especially those heavily influenced by teachers’ unions, could impose permanent online-only days.

As usual, I want to provide enough warning for our community about what might be for us in the future. We have crossed one bridge, but the journey continues.