Five Environmental Benefits from Coronavirus Lockdowns

Happy Earth Day!🦋🌊🌎

I hope your quarantine has been full of at-home workouts and banana bread. We’ve been cooped up in our houses for almost five weeks now. Here are a few things that have happened to our planet throughout this quarantine.

1. LA’s infamous smog was replaced with blue skies.

This is the best air quality the city has seen in almost 40 years. This is happening all across the country. CNN posted satellite images where people can move their cursor to see different time periods and how pollution levels have changed. Fewer cars on the road = less pollution.

2. Endangered sea turtles are thriving in Florida.

Without the humans and harmful waste, turtles have been able to increase nesting significantly from prior years.

3. Venice canals have transformed. Wildlife is thriving.

4. The Himalayas in India are visible for the first time in 30 years.

5. China’s carbon emissions fell around 25% over a four-week period, which is also 100 million metric tons. China is the world’s biggest polluter.

We've been able to physically see what humans are capable of, and what happens to our world when changes are being made.

Before this pandemic, we were worrying about many catastrophic wildfires, floods and hurricanes. Plenty of experts have said that 2020 was the year we had to completely change our ways and take action to limit the the worst impacts of global warming. It's sad to realize that the good we’re currently seeing on our planet is fairly short-term. After lockdowns are lifted, it becomes a worry that the efforts will be easily reversed and create even more damage than what we already had.

It’s important to know that humans have the power to completely change earth for the better, and the miracles we’ve been witnessing prove just that.

I hope you notice how important our world is. Changing your habits can really make a difference — using reusable bags, driving less, recycling, avoiding takeout plastic containers and silverware, shopping less, can all help a little more. This pandemic has taught us to slow down and take in the world around us. It's taught us to look forward to something as simple as our daily walks that give us the chance to finally get out of the house. We've realized that the simple things can easily be taken away from us, and this can happen to with our earth.

When we transition back to our normal lives, remember how we once acted to put others before us. To stay inside to prevent others from getting sick. I hope we can do the same for our planet.

**I am not at all saying that this pandemic is an amazing thing. It’s awful that so many lives are being lost and how this situation has put so many people in stressful places. The best we can do is to stay safe and try to let the light in.