Planet COVID

Planet COVID by SAMUEL GALOCI-SANDIN & LELAND BROWN staff writers

COVID-19 has taken over the globe over the last six months, and pretty much every aspect of life has been affected as a result of the pandemic. From hoarding toilet paper to a lockdown that left the entire world quiet, this planet has seen it all. Although there have been a variety of life-altering changes, the environmental impact of the pandemic is arguably one of the most substantial. COVID-19 has changed the way people interact with the outside world. In the early stages of COVID-19, it appeared that the pandemic was creating a positive effect on the environment. When the world was in quarantine, airline emissions dropped significantly, and vehicular emissions were also down. Frank Dituri, Director of Public Services in Traverse City, explained: “I know what it was like in Traverse City. For a couple of weeks, you could drive around and there was nobody on the road . . . So, all of a sudden, you have a month-long reset where people aren’t driving their vehicles. There are some benefits to it.” With so many people staying home, the air started to become cleaner. According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), transportation makes up 28 percent of the United States carbon emissions. A study by scientists of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, showed that airline traffic was nearly a quarter of what it was before the pandemic, and vehicular traffic was down 50 percent. The total daily global carbon emissions dropped seventeen percent in early April. If some restrictions had continued all throughout the year, global emissions would have been down seven percent. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) predictions show an increase in global warming temperatures around 4°C by the end of the century. Global warming causes higher sea levels, increased precipitation, more melting ice, more severe weather, and possibly acidic oceans. The ocean is projected to soak up some carbon dioxide, acting as a buffer to climate change, which seems nice, but would affect the ocean’s pH (acidity) levels. More acidic oceans could cause issues for marine life, messing up patterns and possibly killing species. These changes were unfortunately not sustainable, and as of August, emissions have already started to climb up again. Director of Municipal Utilities Art Krueger acknowledged this, saying “it seems now that, at least in northern Michigan, people are traveling around like they used to; there doesn’t seem to be that much decrease in vehicle usage.” The 2015 Paris Agreement said that the participating countries would work to keep global warming under 2°C (3.6°F), and try to limit it to 1.5°C (2.7°F).”I know cars and planes and other things like that produced a lot of carbon. Also, a lot of businesses shut down. And those take a lot of energy as well. So in that regard, I think it reduced carbon emissions and is probably beneficial for the environment” says Ethan Roe ‘21, co-president of the SEA Club at TCC.. The countries are behind in their quest for environmental stability, and to keep global warming under 2°C, global carbon emissions would have to be reduced by 2.7 percent each year until 2030, according to a study by the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) in 2019. To limit global warming to 1.5°C, emissions would have to be reduced 7.6 percent every year for the next decade. Although global warming was slowed by

Photo: M. Linck

the lockdown, carbon dioxide emissions are still going up, just slightly less. Readings from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii predicted that if the lockdown had not happened, this year’s emissions would have increased 2.8 ppm (parts per million) since last year. Even with the lockdown, carbon dioxide emissions still increased by 2.4 ppm. Even though the lockdown had an effect on the global emissions, it will just be a bump in the road unless people decide to take action. One of the first things people might think of when it comes to COVID-19 and the environment is the littering of disposable masks. When walking around downtown Traverse City, or by the Grand Traverse Bay, disposable masks are often found on the side of a path or street. Krueger stated, “I think everyone’s getting more used to wearing [masks]. Maybe they blow out of their car when they open the door or something silly, hopefully [people are] not just throwing them on the ground.” Roe compared the mask problem to straws as well. “But . . . [the littering of masks is] something that’s similar to the movement around plastic straws and those being similar in regards to mass [littering].” Local government workers are also seeing this problem. Dituri added, “I don’t see any sort of end in sight yet for the conditions that we’re living under right now. So I have to believe that masks are going to continue to surface that way.” The abundance of masks is causing problems in landfills and surface waters. A study in the United Kingdom found that if every person in the UK used a disposable mask every day for a year, it would add 66,000 metric tons (72,752 US tons) of possibly contaminated plastic waste, and 57,000 metric tons (62,831 US tons) of packaging. For reference, 30,000 US tons equals 60,000,000 pounds. Krueger notes that “not every single outlet [drains, culverts, sewers, etc.] goes into the surface waters.” But he pointed out they still find many plastics in storm drains: “yeah, we find all kinds of stuff in there. You know, wrappers, plastic bags, we’ll find cigarette butts, like I mentioned. You might find bottles.” Storm drains usually have filters designed to catch litter and stop it from going to the lake, but they can’t catch all of it. This garbage could easily be thrown away or recycled by the user, but instead it ends up in our fresh water systems. COVID-19 can stay living on a mask for up to a week, which poses a threat to the essential workers sorting through the recycling. If a mask were to be put in recycling, it would contaminate everything else in that bunch, so now everything must be thrown away. Action of some kind is needed if we want to come close to defeating global warming. Whether that action is everyone making an effort to weaken their carbon footprint and travel less, or picking up littered masks and other garbage, something needs to change. Dituri believes that we are able to take that action. “I hope we’ll see some of those data driven studies that show that it’s not impossible to reduce our use of fossil fuels, especially since there are immediate benefits because of it [the lockdown]. So I think there’s some lessons in that.” As of now, when the global environmental crisis is getting worse instead of better, we might have to learn those lessons quickly. //