COVID-19 And Climate Change: Weapons Of Mass Destruction?

Sudden and dramatic vs. slow and steady

- Raj Gonsallkorale

A the time of writing this article, COVID-19 has so far killed more than 10,000 people, and infected over 244,000 in more than 150 countries, and is likely to infect more and kill more people. No one is able to predict when the pandemic will end. A vaccine is at least 12 to 18 months away.

The economic damage that is resulting from this pandemic is something the world has not experienced. This is going to create a major breakdown in the social order, with unemployment rising, health services taking a major brunt and possibly more long term health issues and deaths even if the pandemic is brought under control.

According to the WHO, air pollution kills a staggering seven million people every year. Recent studies have found toxic air shortens lives worldwide by almost three years on average and the life of every child born today will be greatly affected by climate change. Yet, sceptics continue their anti-climate change rhetoric and they have managed to influence political leaders who unfortunately contribute to adversely changing the direction the world is heading. Donald Trump is one such leader.

During the Iraq war, the USA and UK feigned a pretext to attack Iraq to take control of their oil reserves. The pretext were the non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) that they claimed Iraq possessed, knowing full well it didn’t. Estimates of Iraqis killed during and since that war is said to be at least a million people.

Unlike those non-existent WMDs, the world has been confronted with one WMD, climate change, for a long time, and now, in less than three months this year, another WMD, the COVID-19 pandemic. These are real WMDs.

COVID-19 impact has been sudden and dramatic. It is more immediate, and tangible and is infecting people now and is the undisputed source of their illness and death. The world is panicking and racing to take drastic action to contain the virus. Rightly so.