On 4th Covid anniversary, climate fight turned upside down

Plus, the unknown consequences of a winter without ice

This column is for Callaway Climate Insights subscribers only, but it’s OK to share once in a while. Was it shared with you? Please subscribe.

This NASA image, from March 2020, shows nitrogen dioxide amounts dropped dramatically in just a short period of time, due to the coronavirus quarantine and related economic slowdown.

On 4th Covid anniversary, climate fight turned upside down

. . . . March 11, 2020 may never “go down in infamy” with more well-known U.S. disaster dates such a Dec. 7, 1941 or Sept. 11, 2001, but on this fourth anniversary of the declaration of the Covid emergency, it’s worth taking brief stock of how the twin emergencies of the pandemic and the climate crisis turned the world upside down.

Only 38 people in the U.S. had died on this day four years ago when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a pandemic and then-President Donald Trump closed U.S. borders to European travel. Four years and many culture battles later, more than one million Americans have died, part of seven million worldwide.

The climate fight has flipped on its head as well.