On February 17th, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, posted a picture on Instagram that sparked both negative and positive emotions. In his post he says, “I’m committing $10 billion to start and will begin issuing grants this summer. Earth is the one thing we have in common — let’s protect it, together.” He calls this donation to climate change the Bezos Earth Fund. This post appears to be a positive movement that provides baby steps towards our goal of fighting climate change; however, the comments by the public have not all been nice. Some comments have said “You’re disgusting and no one likes you,” “Stop acting like a hero and spread the money you don’t need that much,” and “Take care of your workers first.” His overall intentions are to donate to such a serious problem such as climate change. Even though he donated a considerable amount of money, people are skeptical of his intentions. 

A group of Amazon workers appreciates the actions of the Bezos Earth Fund, but they spoke up against Bezos talking about Amazon’s involvement with the natural gas businesses. This group of Amazon workers calls themselves the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice. After Bezos posted his Instagram announcement, the Amazon employees posted a counterattack against the company. Their post was nowhere near malicious, for they were just informing the public about the involvement in the climate crisis. Their post says, “When is Amazon going to stop helping oil & gas companies ravage Earth with still more oil and gas wells? When will Amazon take responsibility for the lungs of children near its warehouses by moving from diesel to all-electric trucking?” After the word got around about the gas and oil companies, thousands of employees signed a letter to the board of directors demanding to end the contracts with the harmful companies and create goals for renewable alternatives for the future. 

Amazon finally obliged to the workers after threats of an employee walkout. The committed “to use 100% renewable energy by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2040” (Held). This pledge was a success to the workers and gave Amazon a better reputation amongst the community. They have also purchased around 100,000 emissions-free electric vans to deliver packages all over the country. Climate change remains a scary topic to think about. Although the earth seems fine at the moment, we must think about how our future will look if our bad habits continue. The earth has endured years of abuse and neglect from humans and now we must work together in order to save our beautiful planet and all the inhabitants on it.

Held, Amy. “Jeff Bezos Pledges $10 Billion To Fight Climate Change, Planet’s ‘Biggest Threat’.” NPR, NPR, 17 Feb. 2020, www.npr.org.

Approximately 8.6 million people live in New York City. Known for the broadway shows, fashion icons, Wall Street, and hundreds of other unique attractions, millions of people both visit and live in this bustling city. With that many people in such a compacted space, air pollution is off the charts. The abundance of taxi cars, buses, and subway transportations are all responsible for the drastic increase in CO2 emissions. With a majority of the population in self-quarantine, there is less traffic releasing these pollutes. According to Columbia University, traffic levels were about 35% less than what they were a year ago. 

As a result of the 35% decrease in traffic, carbon monoxide emissions have dropped about 50% in just a couple of days. New York’s air is able to be partially clean compared to a normal day of traffic. Usually, the month of May has the most CO2 emissions due to decomposing leaves; however, the lack of motor vehicles cause the levels to be the lowest they have been in over a decade. A similar situation is occurring in other countries as well, especially in China. NASA released pictures of China showing the decrease of nitrogen dioxide due to the decrease in vehicle emissions. According to Carbon Brief, there has been a 25% decrease in emissions and energy usage in just the past two weeks in China.

In addition to the lack of motor vehicle usage, air traffic has declined greatly as well. With fewer planes in the air, emissions of pollutes will decrease globally. People will stop traveling for work temporarily, people are less inclined to go on vacation and risk exposure, and most people decide to stay in self-quarantine to not spread or contract the virus as well. International travel prohibited which will decease large planes using an abundance of fuel to travel overseas as well.

Depending on the amount of time that economies will be slowed down determines whether or not these changes will stay. Similar circumstances happened during the global financial crisis in 2009. Emissions increased 5% after this crisis after fossil fuel usage skyrocketed. This pandemic could last anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. No one knows how exactly this virus will play out but for now, we must do what is best to prevent the spread of the virus. This small benefit of declining toxins is proof that humans are the reason for most air pollution problems, climate change, and ozone changes. Air pollution will be on the decline for now.

The Coronavirus has caused millions of people to stay inside and self-quarantine from the rest of the world. During a time of fear and worry, people feed off of possible hope during this pandemic. Recently, a tweet about the canals in Venice went viral on Twitter with over one million likes and almost 300 thousand shares. This tweet said, “Here’s an unexpected side effect of the pandemic – the water’s flowing through the canals of Venice is clear for the first time in forever. The fish are visible, the swans returned.” This tweet may sound optimistic, it is false news. People responded positively thinking that having everyone in self-quarantine will magically “heal” nature.

Another tweet went viral regarding the Venice canals as well. This tweet said, “Venice hasn’t seen clear canal water in a very long time. Dolphins showing up too. Nature just hit the reset button on us.” Thousands of people responded positively to this tweet as well. During stressful situations seeing hopeful posts about restoring the world will induce joyful emotions. However, these tweets are providing false information about animals living in a “human-less” world.

The swans in the first tweet are not returning, in fact, they are regulars. They are normally seen swimming around the smaller islands around the main area of Venice. While the boats may scare the swan from swimming everywhere, they have always been in Venice. Regarding the dolphins swimming freely in the canals, they are actually dolphins filmed in Sardinia. Sardinia happens to be hundreds of miles south of Venice against the Mediterranean Sea. The clear water in Venice is because of the lack of boat use; however, the main reason is that the dirt and sediments are laying on the bottom of the canals. Without boats, the dirt is not mixed with the water making the water appear dirtier than when the canals are boatless. Boats are also contributing to water pollution, but the dirt is what makes the water appear brown.

The canals are beautiful due to the lack of boat use which does bring joy to residents of Venice and everyone around the world. Having optimism during the pandemic will help those who are stressed during this time. According to Susan Clayton, a psychology and environmental science professor at the University of Wooster, “I think people really want to believe in the power of nature to recover.” She shares how people would love to think that humans polluting the earth can be reversed and that nature can always recover. The downside to these fake feel-good news stories is that the public may distrust the media more than they already do. These tweets may bring spirits up during a crisis, but in reality, nature cannot bounce back from dire situations in only a couple of weeks or months of isolation.