Environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, as observed from space

 Willy Swenson

Current Event 13

“Environmental Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic, as Observed from Space.” ScienceDaily, 2020, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201208162957.htm. Accessed 11 Feb. 2021.

As different health and safety regulations keep more of us at home more frequently, COVID-19 has changed the way we live and work. According to comparisons of remote sensing data before and after the pandemic gathered by NASA, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Earth-observing satellites and others, the resulting changes to our actions are already affecting the world around us in myriad ways. The article explains, deforestation patterns in some countries are changing, air pollution is declining, water quality is rising, and since the pandemic started earlier this year, snow is becoming more reflective in some areas. However, Timothy Newman, National Land Imaging Program Coordinator for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) claims, 

"But we will need more research to clearly attribute environmental change to COVID". Satellite imagery and Landsat data indicate a decline in air emissions since the lockdown. Because of the COVID-19 lockdowns, manufacturing practices in India, including collecting and crushing stone for building projects, slowed or ground to a halt. One study showed that the concentration of particulate matter (PM) 10, an air pollutant, decreased by around a third to a fourth of the pre-pandemic average in India. 

While many communities have been affected negatively by the COVID pandemic, there is a small silver lining to this virus. Our world is recovering from the years of strain and pollution humans put on it. By isolating at homes, we travel less (less emissions from cars), fly less (less emissions from planes) and we work less (less pollution from factories/mines). This is extremely important to our Earth’s environment because we are reaching a point of no return, where our pollution and damage will become irresistible. While quaretning at home is not a sustainable option for human culture and mental health, we learn very valuable lessons from this lockdown: we can improve our Earth’s environment. 

After this pandemic is over, or at least suppressed enough to where everyday life can resume, it will be important to learn from our mistakes. Instead of driving everywhere, people need to give public transportation or car pooling a try because this will reduce their carbon footprint. Not only this, we see that reducing mining in places like India can show significant improvement in air quality, so there should be significant research done in ways to make mining a sustainable practice in these areas.