Local experts say cleaner air is a pandemic byproduct

Gov. Mike Parson’s stay-at-home order means Earth Day gatherings for events such as a community tree planting will not happen Wednesday.

Advocates of the celebration held April 22 each year find themselves housebound like everyone else.

A silver lining in a worldwide pandemic may be difficult to find, but John Kraemer, director of the Environmental Sciences program at Southeast Missouri State University, says the atmosphere is benefiting from temporarily sidelined industries and empty streets.

“People’s lives and their health are clearly more important,” Kraemer said, “but it is undeniable what we’re seeing from space.”

Kraemer said NASA and U.S. Geological Survey satellites clearly show particulate matter is reduced and so is air pollution.

“There is less carbon dioxide, less nitrous oxide and fewer greenhouse gases,” he added.

“Less traffic translates into the cleanest air we’ve seen in a long time,” said John Hickey, Sierra Club Missouri chapter director.

“We actually have 68 Sierra (Club) members in Cape County and 14 in Scott,” said Hickey, who has been state director for a decade.

Hickey said he thinks the cleaner air of the last month can show Missourians something important.

“The shutdown proves America and Missouri can make substantial (environmental) progress very quickly,” Hickey said.

“If we can handle coronavirus, we can handle climate change,” he added.

Kraemer said he fears this positive environmental news could well be a blip.

“The danger is these short-term gains will be more than outweighed by a vigorous post-pandemic return to production,” he said.

“Companies may well gear up to catch up (from pandemic losses),” Kraemer said, “using cheap sources of energy, inexpensive fossil fuels.”

The Sierra Club has long advocated wind and solar as alternative forms of energy and say the jobs produced will be local.

“If you put in a wind tower or solar panels,” Hickey said, “this has to be done by some company here in Missouri.

“By contrast,” he said, “97% of the coal burned for electricity in Missouri comes from Wyoming.”

One environmental downside to the shutdown is more solid waste, Kraemer said.

“You can’t take a refillable mug into Starbucks right now,” said Kraemer, who has headed environmental sciences at Southeast for three years.

“Those paper cups are more garbage to throw away right there,” he said.

Environmentally friendly grocery totes cannot be brought into supermarkets, either, the professor said, so the use of plastic, throwaway bags is up.

Kraemer said he is cautiously optimistic that out of the horror of COVID-19, perhaps one positive may emerge.

“My hope is we can get people to change their behavior,” he said, “and maybe these environmental gains won’t immediately go away once normalcy returns.”