The atmosphere breathes during the pandemic on a planet drowned by pollution

The situation generated on the planet by the coronavirus, which has forced a confinement of the population, has plummeted air pollution to levels never seen before, but on the eve of Earth day experts urge not to neglect “the true origin” of the pandemic: the climate and biodiversity crisis.

According to images captured by the European Space Agency (ESA), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations have fallen between 40 and 50% in the main cities of the continent most affected by the pandemic compared to the levels of a year ago, the same trend that NASA appreciated over other regions of the world, such as the United States or China, where NO2 decreased between 30 and 40% in both cases.

But experts recall that COVID-19 is also the visible face of biodiversity loss, deforestation, intensive livestock farming, or the growing illegal wildlife trade, which, with climate change as an amplifier, is drowning the planet.

Earth Day 2020 coincides with the UN denominated “super year” of biodiversity, in which the XV Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity plans to address a Global Framework with ambitious objectives to protect nature and tackle to threats like deforestation.

Biodiversity as an antidote

WWF recalls that the current pandemic has been transmitted from animals to humans, as it once was with SARS, MERS and Ebola, and warns that the loss of biodiversity facilitates the transmission and spread of pathogens potentially dangerous to humans.

“Having healthy ecosystems is our best antivirus”, says Luis Suárez, Conservation Coordinator of WWF Spain, who highlights the direct relationship between the health of the Earth and that of the human being and insists that, after confinement, “the only way out will be green investment, the fight against climate change and nature conservation. “

SEO / BirdLife invites us to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day with a reflection, are we taking good care of the Earth that welcomes us ?, because the coronavirus crisis “should make us think about the relationship and interaction we have with the planet”.

“There is no better antidote or ally than nature itself to face the environmental, social and economic problems we are facing,” the NGO stresses.

Half a century of planetary celebration

50 years ago, the United States Senate proposed April 22 to honor Mother Earth, a date that was finally adopted in 2009 by the United Nations General Assembly.

This 2020, the planetary party invites digital participation for the first time through the Earth Challenge application, available in eleven languages, which encourages the confined population to connect with nature by observing and sharing data in a cloud of citizen science.

Powered by the Earth Day Network, the app enables individuals to participate in environmental research from the safety of their homes, become part of the global citizen science community, and fill data gaps for specific policy formulation.

The challenges through social networks occur in these times of confinement, also on Earth Day, when platforms like Vestiaire Collective propose consumers to break with old habits, get rid of the fashion pieces they no longer need. and learn how to build a more eco-friendly wardrobe through the Wardrobe Reality Check challenge.

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