What Coronavirus Means for Climate

What the Coronavirus Means for Climate Change 3.27.2020
Meehan Crist
Read more in The New York Times

The astonishing shutdown of economic activity and drastic reduction of fossil fuel use is a tragedy, a “gut-wrenching reality check” for many in need. And it could be an inflection point, shaping the climate crisis for decades. Or not. Already there are big setbacks for climate progress, but opportunities too: remove carbon from supply chains, reduce subsidies, re-think the social contract, “re-write our sense of what’s possible,” break the logic of profit and endless growth, subordinate the needs of the market to human needs, create a functioning economy without threating life on Earth, including our own.

A “writer in residence in biological sciences” at Columbia University, Meehan Crist publishes widely and teaches scientific and creative writing.