Mother Nature Bounces Back

As people huddle indoors away from the virus animals have come out to play and pollution has lifted

- Sandy Cook

Penguins waddling through deserted streets in Simon’s Town, Cape Town. Coyotes roaming San Francisco in the US. Lions lounging on empty roads in the Kruger National Park. Mountain goats frolicking through a near-abandoned town in Wales in the UK.

As humans have retreated indoors to stave off the spread of coronavirus, it seems nature has come out to play, revelling in spaces where once there was an influx of people.

But creatures great and small aren’t all that are benefiting from a new world order. Astonishing before-and-after pictures around the globe show the extent to which the absence of air pollution has transformed cities once clogged by smog into crisp, clean vistas.

Dozens of countries have seen a drop of up to 40% in carbon dioxide emissions, which has translated into a huge improvement in air quality.

Paul Monks, a professor of air pollution at the University of Leicester in the UK, told The Guardian there’ll be “important lessons to learn”.

“We are now, inadvertently, conducting the largest-scale experiment ever seen,” he says. “Are we looking at what we might see in the future if we can move to a low-carbon economy?

“Not to denigrate the loss of life, but this might give us some hope from something terrible – to see what can be achieved.”

The drop in air pollution can even be seen from space. Nasa’s satellites recently captured a noticeable drop-off in pollution over China’s biggest cities, where industry was halted and vehicle traffic practically disappeared.