Now Isn’t the Time to Forget About Our Climate Change Efforts
BY EMILY FARRA VOGUE March 17, 2020
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Tasha Tilberg, Lindsey Wixson, and Liu Wen photographed for
Vogue’s September 2019 issue at the Eagle Street Rooftop Garden
in Brooklyn.Photographed by Tierney Gearson, Vogue, September 2019
The absentminded Instagram scroll looks a lot different these days. Vacation pics and shameless selfies have been replaced with glimpses of how we’re living through the coronavirus outbreak and its necessary quarantines: Health care officials are sharing their tips and expertise; fitness instructors are posting living-room workouts; chefs are sharing easy home-cooked meals; and others are posting about how we can all help those who are most at risk.
It’s a reminder of how social media keeps us connected and informed no matter where we are in the world, a fact we take for granted with every double tap. But it’s mostly a testament to the power of coming together around a crisis and taking collective action for the greater global good. In theory, practicing social distancing, washing our hands more thoroughly, and working from home can slow down this disease and eventually, hopefully, eliminate it. We’re all doing our small, if sometimes inconvenient, part, and already we’re beginning to see how our individual actions contribute to something much, much bigger than us.
For those involved in climate-change efforts, you might see a few through lines between our response to the coronavirus and our response (or lack thereof) to the effects of climate change. Climate scientists and activists have preached for decades that our individual choices and behaviors matter, whether you’re composting, ditching single-use plastic, buying secondhand clothes, or doing the precise opposite of all of those things—wasting food, relying on plastic water bottles and containers, shopping extravagantly.
For many people, of course, awareness is still the root issue; just like some of us didn’t understand the concept of herd immunity or that staying in could save lives, plenty of people still don’t realize the effects of throwing away a plastic bag or shopping at certain retailers. What we need to reverse climate change is a swell of united, all-in-this-together effort from each and every one of us, and, as we’ve learned from the coronavirus, that probably won’t happen until we treat climate change like the crisis that it is. Only when the appropriate media attention (and resulting social media attention) is given to the people being displaced by climate change, the rising water levels, the endangered species, and the dire predictions of what’s to come—natural disasters, fatalities, lost islands—will we link arms and make those crucial lifestyle changes.
It calls to mind a particular meme that made the rounds on Instagram last week: “Climate change needs coronavirus’s publicist.” Jokes aside, the takeaway is astute: Climate change needs a spotlight and sense of urgency to get us moving. “We can see with coronavirus that action did not follow immediacy [of the news]—action more closely aligned to when the stories we were told became more serious,” says Maxine Bédat, the founder of New Standard Institute. “This is why I think the media and communications are such a critical part of solving the climate crisis. We need the communications of the climate crisis to match the urgency that is the climate crisis. As the stories are told, as we have seen with the coronavirus, we, the people, will respond accordingly.”
We asked Bédat and a few other climate-change experts to share what that hypothetical response might look like. After what is looking like weeks, if not months, of social distancing, canceled events, and stressful news, their suggestions might even sound easy.
Step 1: We would dramatically shift our transportation habits.
It’s well known that transportation—by air, train, or car—is one of the top contributors to climate change. “If we took climate change as seriously as the coronavirus, our cities would be oriented around public transportation, which might include shared bicycles for last-mile transport,” Bédat offers. “Public transit would be fast, clean, and low priced and would take us to work and cultural institutions—museums, shows, concerts, or restaurants showcasing locally grown food from farms that use regenerative practices. We would also immediately change from gas cars to electric, like our stoves, and turn our power grids to renewable sources. Our appliances and vehicles would run on renewable energy too.”
“Everyone with access to renewable energy would switch,” adds Haley Boyd, a designer turned sustainability entrepreneur working on a new sourcing tool for the fashion industry. “It’s one of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint, and it’s widely available and price competitive in many places. Reduced transportation and ride-sharing apps [are also better choices]. I wish UberPool and Lyft shared rides were labeled as eco.”
Susan Tarka Sanchez, a U.N. certified engineer and expert in circular product design who is also working with Boyd, adds that we have to “rethink work as we know it and what impacts that will have on transportation.” For instance, if more people begin to work remotely, which could very well happen after weeks (or months) of these #WFH quarantines, it would reduce the number of cars on the road and put less strain on public transit.
Step 2: We would make clean water a bigger priority.
“Water is already at its crisis stage, and no one is really talking about it,” Tarka Sanchez says. “The water imbalance on planet Earth is a direct correlation to climate change from emissions [created by] manufacturing pretty much everything we use, eat, wear, and do. It’s about chemistry that you do not see—and people are currently dying in this country from contaminated water. It is still the number one killer of children in the world, usually from diarrhea due to water contamination. Without clean water, we have no clean air, no food, no habitat for animals, plants, and all the creatures to drink,” she continues. “We just use way too much water and are destroying it by making all of the other stuff we use.”
Tarka Sanchez mentioned water purifiers and rainwater barrels as water-saving solutions, and you can also donate to clean-water organizations. But water use—and contamination—is something you should consider when you’re buying clothes too. Conventional cotton and denim are both among the top offenders in terms of their water use, and if you’re purchasing cheap polyester clothes, they could be made in an unregulated factory that doesn’t properly dispose of its chemicals. Polyester and other synthetic fabrics shed microplastics in the laundry too, which eventually make their way into the waterways and our bodies.
Step 3: We would change the way we care for our clothes, shop secondhand, and demand transparency from brands.
“Rebuilding a relationship with our closets [would be crucial],” Bédat adds. “Our clothing would be things that we purchased with thought—we would know that they would be worn, taken care of, and cherished for years, not just a few wears. Clothing brands would slow down the release of new items and use that time to design and develop pieces that would delight us. And designers themselves would not suffer from burnout!” she continues. “The fashion we chose would reflect not our insecurities but rather the comfort and joy we have in ourselves.”
“We don’t need to wait for another global crisis like the Rana Plaza collapse to mobilize,” Céline Semaan, the founder of Slow Factory, adds in regards to holding brands accountable for their environmental and social responsibility. “Things this serious are happening every day—we’re just not getting full support from the fashion press about them. We need to think about using our creativity and innovation to adapt to changing times. Design and aesthetics have always had deeper roots in ethics and meaning. This was once only related to status, but I see it shifting to a collective understanding of our humanity.” She continues: “The industry should be taking a closer look at systems and data so we can understand the impact of all fashion products and how they can take a waste-led, circular approach. The more information, transparency, and digestible data that is shared and embraced by the public, the more pressure the public will have on the fashion industry, demanding accountability once and for all.”
Step 4: We would fully embrace the ethos of less is more and would look to prior generations for inspiration.
“In a way, the coronavirus is climate change’s publicist,” Boyd says. “Emissions in China are down 25%. Air travel is down. People aren’t buying material goods. They’re staying local. Those are some of the most important actions individuals can take, and they look a lot like what life was like not too long ago. Some of the most important climate solutions are not novel—they’re the habits of our parents and grandparents,” she continues. “We have to eliminate the idea of waste and disposability. I hope for a future where all materials are valuable, used, and reused, [and we] care for things the way our grandparents did. As I’ve adopted a more conscious lifestyle, I keep noticing that I’m doing things the way my grandmother did—I cook from scratch, I don’t waste things, I avoid disposable goods, like using dish towels instead of paper towels.”
“With personal-care products, we do not need most of any of the stuff we use,” Tarka Sanchez adds. “We should go back to basics, like apple cider vinegar. As for clothing, people are just realizing you are what you wear. I have now gone seven months without buying anything new as an experiment and have learned how to darn socks like they did during the war and to save buttons that fall off like my mom did during the Great Depression.”
On that note, Bédat has an alternative to buying anything at all: “We would have to rebuild our relationships with each other,” she says. “Rather than the short, quick high of a cheap purchase, we can develop more meaningful and long-term ways of finding pleasure, including more connection with our friends, family, and community.”
Step 5: We would ask businesses contributing massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions to suspend their operations.
Semaan also proposed a temporary shutdown of certain corporations and industries. “[It would be crucial to] shut down businesses and activities that directly and massively contribute to greenhouse gas emissions in the order of negative impact and magnitude, starting with energy used in buildings, schools, governments, and any public-facing infrastructure,” she says. “[They would be] put on pause until they are fully replaced with solar-powered, carbon-negative solutions. Businesses that contribute to the problem would be mandated to shut down immediately while larger solutions are explored. We would cancel all fossil-fuel extractions; replace concrete production with a circular solution, such as green concrete; [and there would be] mandatory green roofs, regenerative agriculture, and the protection of Indigenous lands. This would also include the mandatory reform of all heating and air-conditioning systems in large buildings to comply with circular, solar-powered solutions, and for the recycling of gray water in buildings to be filtered back into drinkable water. Federal funds would be diverted to emergency services around installing clean-energy solutions.”
