Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Emphasis of Reduce!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Emphasis on The Reduce

John Paul Derryberry

There is no silver lining in a tragedy like this. Thousands of people have died and more are going to die. It is, by all accounts, a colossal failure of leadership around the globe. We needed transparent, thoughtful, compassionate, and responsible decision making to get out of this with as little loss of life as possible. What we received was the exact opposite, but that doesn't mean there is no new information to glean from this experience. 

This new information should inform our changing world after this virus has passed and we have a proper vaccine. One undeniable fact from the world going into a partial shutdown is the improved air quality and the reduction of pollution in the air we breathe. While some areas of the world have seen a trend of animals roaming in places they usually would not be seen, one thing everyone is benefiting from is cleaner air. (Burnstein, April 23, 2020). 

Cities are seeing far-off mountains and landscapes again. People in the northern Indian state of Punjab are reacting with awe at the sight of the Himalayan mountain range, which is now visible from more than 100 miles away, due to the reduction in air pollution caused by the country's coronavirus lockdown.  (Picheta, April 9, 2020). Considering that polluted air has exacerbated the COVID-19 problem because it attacks our lungs so viciously, maybe we shouldn't return to normal operations when we resume life. Perhaps actually having fresh air to breathe is vital to being human. 

We have seen cleaner air, cleaner cities, more fresh breathes in as little as five weeks of humans just curtailing their actions to be more health-conscious. There was an odd debate happening about the human impact on all the environmental changes we were seeing. It always baffled me because the only species on the planet to evolve into beings that can affect the environment was us. It wasn't like elephants all of a sudden were producing more methane gas than they were 200 years ago. So we now have the proof that so many were doubting; humans drive a majority of pollution, which drives climate change.  

The hardest part of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle has always been reducing. It means to curtail our growth and, as a species, we have never been rah-rah, sis-boom-ba about not growing. In reality, it doesn't have to be that way. We can embrace the reduction of harmful use of climate-destroying chemicals for an explosion of growth in reusable energy. We can reshape our power grids, our cities, our nations with the idea of going green for growth. 

The world is going to change after this. It has to. We lost too many people because our broken system doesn't solve problems like this. Anyone thinking that this won't happen again hasn't looked at a history book. So, we will have to decide if we want a better world after this and demand that our leaders produce one. That doesn't just include overhauling our healthcare system. It takes the information we gather during quarantine, all of it. We will need to consider the effects of this on mental health, business, the environment, and decide the smart direction to take. We can apply the mantra "reduce, reuse and recycle" to the environment with the information we already have. We just need to place more emphasis on Reduce. That's why it's the first one listed.