Historically, 2020 will go down as one of those “benchmark” years. As one of the humble hacks who survived the year that was, I’m happy to look back and be able to move on. I first read about a mystery illness emerging in Wuhan China from a BBC article published on 3 January 2020. The article mentioned 44 cases of an unknown illness that mimicked the 2003-04 SARS virus. We beat that virus, I thought then, surely we can tackle this one…no big deal right?…right???
Writing this, 374 days later, the Johns Hopkins University COVID dashboard shows 91,180,544 confirmed cases. The deal has become rather big, no? While there are nine approved vaccines worldwide, the rollout has been slow. I’ve resigned myself to expect a few more months of this.
We’ve been locked-down, separated, confined, and closed off since March (some places longer). Most people have shown an extraordinary capacity to adapt and make the best of bizarre situations. Society has settled into a comfortable place; things aren’t great, but they’re OK, for now. (If we practice some common sense and WEAR A DAMN MASK!!!)
Meanwhile, our natural world has adapted to our absence. Science has evolved new ways of sharing data in a climate of social isolation too.
Anthropause
The journal Nature proposed the term “anthropause” in their 22 June 2020 issue to refer to the “considerable global slowing of modern human activities, notably travel” due to worldwide stay-at-home orders. And the slowing was considerable indeed!
When deniers argue how overblown the myth of human impact is to the environment, we can point to 2020 as positive proof for our case. Images were all over the internet last year of nature moving on without us…quite nicely, thank you. We’ve seen the stories; a herd of goats invading a Welsh village, puma wandering the streets of Santiago Chile, and the issues New Orleans, Louisiana faced with rats.
The global demand for seafood tanked between April and July of 2020 as restaurants closed during quarantines (among other places where fish is consumed). Half of the Spanish fishing fleet was confined to port; those boats catching fish were reduced to selling their haul for “reasonable” rates. The Cruise ship industry sat idyll (for obvious reasons) and the oceans quieted down.
Data on global fisheries during WW1 and WW2 indicated a drop in commercial catches and increasing global ocean biomass. Those wars lasted four and seven years, where the COVID lockdowns only lasted a few months. Researchers anticipate a slight increase in ocean biomass over the next few years.
More critters in the sea are a good thing-more on land is even better. A University of California Davis report released toward the end of June showed roadkill rates of large mammals had dropped about 58% (in California) during the peak of lockdowns from March to the end of April. Fewer cars on the road may have resulted in fewer deaths during spring breeding seasons. Of course, the flocks of vultures that make their living off the victims of urban sprawl aren’t too happy.
All has not been awesome
The lockdown hasn’t been all sunshine and roses for nature either. Closed borders and grounded flights mean little eco-tourism in the large African Safari parks. Reserves, where rhinos were able to roam safely without too much threat of poaching, were being invaded. The park rangers still patrolled, but virus restrictions kept the parks quiet. In 2015 Africa received 62.5 million visitors, many of those visitors going on photo safaris. That’s a couple of million extra sets of eyes keeping tabs on the land. Poachers have grown bolder in sparsely visited parks.
During the height of Italy’s lockdown, as Italian hospitals were overrun with patients, social media was buzzing with images of water clarity in the Venetian canals. This was great, but did it really mean the water was cleaner? Honestly, not really. Clear water doesn’t always equate to clean water. The sediment in the water column likely settled to the bottom because there was so little boat traffic. If the water got tested for dissolved contaminants, there would be a good possibility that there would still be pollution. That’s not to say that given a little more time, the water would show decreased contamination.
Breathe easier…but wear a mask
This image right here says it all!!! It still amazes me as much now as it did when I first saw it. Residents of northern India (this photo was taken in Punjab) could view the Himalayas for the first time in about thirty years. Fewer vehicles and factory shutdowns cleared the resulted in temporarily clearer air.
People- We’re screwing with our air quality!!!
For a short period of time during the strictest shut down in China, CO2 emissions dropped 25% below average. As life returned to “normal”, CO2 emissions rose over a seven-week period, to about 18% below average. Scientists will probably look at the long term analysis of short term quarantine for the next few years. What is certain is that we can almost immediately see the harmful effects of the human lifestyle when we put that lifestyle on hold for even a second.
Science never stops
This past summer, I read The Great Influenza by John Berry. Most of my reading material from 2020 lingered around the area of biological disasters…not great for the emotional well-being of the socially isolated. At any rate, the book was beyond eye opening and emphasized how depressingly little has changed about our society in the last 100 years. One of the subjects Berry touched on was the innovations to vaccine theory and production that arose from the research into the 1918 epidemic.
When China finally released the genome sequence of the novel SARS COVID-19 virus, researchers from myriad disciplines and far-reaching countries jumped all over the information. Within the first six weeks, scientists colaborated remotely using social media and news outlets to share their knowledge with each other and the public.
For once researchers seemed less concerned with guarding the secrecy of their data and more anxious to share their findings for the greater good of humanity. If you look into the history of science, this has rarely been the case.
Open for all
Not long ago, I was reading a paper investigating the increased risk of COVID related to a disease called sarcoidosis. The authors and the journal were quick to point out that the study had yet to be peer-reviewed. Peer review is a big thing in science, verification, and validation by your contemporaries. Without that validation, anyone can say anything. The thing about peer review though is that it takes f o r e v e r and science moves at a turtle’s pace as it is.
Information about this virus has to move about quickly. More open access to papers has been an asset to someone who, like me, has limited access to all of the available literature (I’m no longer affiliated with an institution so I’m limited with what I can access). Journal publishers offering more open access to studies and more information on the web have encouraged the rapid sharing of data and unprecedented scientific cooperation.
Problems arise when you have too much of a good thing. We live in an age of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. Studies published without validation and verification can be faulty. Worse, some nefarious types can cherry-pick information to push their own agenda. Early last spring one study that had not been vetted properly connected COVID-19 with HIV. The “deep internet of crazy” took that as scientific proof for the theory of biological engineering. Publishers have since retracted the paper, but the idea persisted.
The take home
We’re a year on from the first major outbreak of COVID-19. Vaccines are circulating slowly. Hopefully, we will return to a less isolated lifestyle by year’s end. We can’t forget the evidence of our absence. Humans have an impact on the global environment, unlike any other large organism. We have to recognize that responsibility and act on the lessons we learned in 2020.
