We think so. We think that the pandemic’s silver lining is the life raft Covid has thrown the world by stopping those normal lives long enough for the environment to take a deep, healing breath.

Where do you see Covid’s beneficial touch?

The most notable change is air quality. Just look at David Spake’s before and after photo series of Los Angeles. The Covid quarantine cleared the air! Truly amazing. 

What if the majority of people emerge from quarantine to see clear skies and enjoy fresh breezes? Imagine that they decide that they like living in a clean world. Imagine that they want to live in a world that has fresh air, clean water, and healthy food.

Imagine that they decide to make a cleaner world the new normal?

We are still in the midst of the pandemic, quarantined and socially distanced. People are angry and impatient – but these collective measures are working, however irritating they may be to each of us individually.

We must open up soon, because we cannot survive all locked away, but how we open up, the new normal we create, is critical. Yes, it matters because it will determine whether the pandemic kills and kills or we can contain it. What really matters, however, is what the new normal means for life as we know it – and enjoy it – on earth.

Have we learned from the pandemic?

We hope so.

We know that if everyone goes their own way, Covid spreads fast and that if we all act together we can slow it to a near stop. 

And the climate?

Well, in the old normal, we had a free-for-all – and the result is obvious in the first of the photos above of LA. But if we can build a new normal, a normal in which we all cooperate to ensure that our skies remain blue, our breezes fresh, and our water clean then we could live in a world that looks like the glorious, final photo of L.A. above

If Covid has a lasting silver lining, this will be it – a new awareness that if we want a healthy world to live in, we all have to pull together.