One Climate Scientist’s Lessons for Confronting Coronavirus
Governments across the world have taken drastic action to contain the novel coronavirus. That strategy has lessons for climate scientists who see a looming global catastrophe.
As the country searches for solutions and more information about how to fight the the novel coronavirus, some scientists are urging leaders look at how proposed climate change solutions could be adopted to slow the spread of COVID-19.
“Hopefully, at the end of this coronavirus situation we can recognize what it takes to marshal global scale cooperation to meet the demands of science.” – Kim Cobb, climate scientist
Kim Cobb is a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She tells WDET’s Annamarie Sysling about some of the big lessons we can learn from the climate crisis in addressing the novel coronavirus.
“Climate change is really taking direct aim at historically marginalized residents and that’s whats going on with coronavirus as well,” says Cobb. “It’s really going to leave those people out in the cold.”
Early aggressive action is crucial according to Cobb.
“We really need to rely on very aggressive early action to minimize loss,” Cobb says. “We stumble through these losses as though our actions are going to be enough, it clearly hasn’t been enough for the coronavirus and clearly hasn’t been enough for climate change.”
“One of my dim hopes is that, hopefully, at the end of this coronavirus situation we can recognize what it takes to marshal global scale cooperation to meet the demands of science.”
Click on the player above to hear climate scientist Kim Cobb on how fighting climate change can influence fighting the novel coronavirus.
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