unintended benefits

everything happens for reason, i truly believe that to my core.

self quarantine isn’t all that terrible. my apartment has never been cleaner and i haven't overpaid for coffee in two weeks...

one a serious note:

i’m very proud of us, humanity has shown so much compassion with this epidemic. we have shown selflessness in volunteering our time and dare i say our health to help others. so many of us volunteering at hospitals, shelters, for non-profits getting food and other supplies to high risk individuals. we’ve come together to create, produce and supply hospitals with masks and ventilators. influencers are using their following and their finances to donate money to families in need of food. and everyday folks are coming together to support us freelancers, instructors, and individuals out of work due to the closures of customer service industries. we’ve done our part to protect others by staying home, and i am truly impressed with how strongly we’ve bonded to protect our immune compromised and our elderly.

even though so many of us are struggling not just financially but mentally, physically, and emotionally, we continue to lift each other up (metaphorically of course, from at least six feet away). utilizing social media not for lifestyle highlights but for something so much bigger, so much better. again, influencers inspiring good deeds in others, and individuals engaging in fun challenges from posting puppies to babies, fitness challenges, recommendations of books, shows, and recipes. we’ve found a way to make quarantining cool. we have taken these social media platforms and turned them into resources for each other; using our online presence to share information, not just the negative but also the many positives.

which brings me to my point.

our quarantine has dramatically decreased the demand for manmade products, resulting in the same dramatic decrease in both air and water pollution. life has returned to areas that have been desolate for decades, and our earth has started to heal.

in italy fish have returned to the venice canals for the first time in decades. china’s greenhouse emissions over the past month are a quarter below normal. the number of ‘good quality air days’ increased by 21.5% in February compared to last year. and my hope is that once this pandemic subsides, environmental reforms like biodiversity strategies and anti–food waste measures will remain a priority.

“Environmental and anti-coronavirus priorities should be one set of priorities. “There’s no need to pick between them.”

- Christiana Figueres, the UN’s top climate change official until 2016

"This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop-off over such a wide area for a specific event,"

- Fei Liu, an air quality researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

since february third, CO2 emissions were down by over 25% because of the measures to contain the coronavirus, according to the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). as the world's biggest polluter, China contributes 30% of the world's CO2 emissions annually, so the impact of this kind of drop is huge, even over a short period.

not to say that this pandemic isn’t horrible, it’s one of the most terrifying and uncertain times i’ve experienced in my life. but there are positives emerging from this, and one is the huge impact that our lack of economic growth, has had on the earth. how less consumerism, less production, more time at home with our families has returned life to waters that haven't seen anything but pollution for decades, clear skies to Asia, humpback whales to oceans...

the truth is, we’ve been slowly, or maybe not so slowly, diminishing our health and quality of life as we suffocate our oceans and air with increased demand for ‘stuff.’ we’ve been wasting our resources with our food choices, fashion choices, and overall consumerism. and some of us have wasted time, not intentionally, but due to this idea that we have so much when really, we don't. but as we slow our role, as we stay in and focus on all the things we always wanted to do but never had time for, the demands on our planet minimize. and with a little fairy dust, our priorities change from work harder or make more money, to creating more balance, and doing more of what makes our soul happy not just our pockets.

the opportunity to get more time back in our days is here.

i truly hope that, although these are not the circumstances we want for this, these are not short lived improvements. during the financial crisis of 08/09 something similar happened: the growth in worldwide emissions fell by half but as the economy shot back up so did these numbers. this is different, or so i’m praying, that as we make our way out of this, not only will our mentality, values, and demands change, but that the government officials will enforce and promote sustainable growth as we emerge from this crisis.

we are in this together. we always have been.

we will all make it out of this terrifying time to tell the story of that time in 2020 when the world stopped and stayed home, when fish returned to oceans and blue skies to china, when we came together to protect one another, all 8 billion strangers on this planet.