climate v. covid

y’all, i can’t take a reusable bag to the grocery store anymore because of covid-19, so i think we’re going to lose to climate change… it was the only thing stopping this planet from being cooked like a coddled egg. how sad. :(

sarcasm aside, climate change is as big a threat as ever. the brief dip in emissions from a few weeks of self-isolation will be wiped out soon enough. 2020 is still shattering temp records, a category 5 “super” cyclone is about to force 1 million people in south asia to seek shelter (great timing in a pandemic), and i know it seems like it was 8 years ago, but it was actually just january when around 46 million acres of australia burned to the ground.

remember three weeks ago when everyone was freaking out about the price of oil? all of that’s bounced back, or about to. we’re hearing that the coal industry is dying, but yesterday the trump admin slapped solar/wind with huge back taxes, giving an advantage to fossil fuel interests.

i know that, collectively, everyone right now is bored of animal crossing and is pretending covid-19 went away. lots of us are going out again, because giving a shit is exhausting, let’s pretend it’ll all be fine. in my area, the clean air is already receding as traffic returns. no one seems to know how to fit a mask to their face. we’re pretty much back to ‘normal.’

gosh, i sure hope they’re right, because i’ve seen what happens to this country when people ignore existential threats. hello, 92,000 dead in four months. when do we get a national day of mourning or is it still all too abstract?

you can be bullied back into your shitty job by your landlord and your elected officials, or you can take this threat—and the much bigger one of climate change—more seriously. what that means is up to you.