There is nothing special with the celebration of Earth Day this year. Although it raises the central issue of realizing a “zero-carbon future,” the problem seems to sink in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic, which is affecting all the world’s population. The global action plan also cannot implement the theme “EarthRise.” However, during the pandemic, at least the earth appeared healthier due to the reduced rate of vehicle emissions, factories and extraction industry activities temporarily halted their businesses, and cities reduced their activities which at the same time reduced their energy consumption.
“During this time at home and PSBB, Jakarta’sJakarta’s sky became brighter and bluer, even Mount Salak and Mount Gede Pangrangro were visible from Jakarta. Something that will not happen in a normal Jakarta situation so that it was quite crowded in cyberspace yesterday, the appearance,” said the Head of UGM Environmental Study Center (PSLH), Dr. Pramono Hadi, M.Sc., on Friday (24/4).
According to him, the impact of the pandemic in terms of the economy and health is very bothersome. However, there are still few who see it from the environmental size because there is no specific and detailed research about it. Nevertheless, the condition of positive changes that occur in the environment is in line with expectations. According to him, the current situation has become an irony, but the impact from the environmental side is quite significant. He gave an example in other countries as well; the Venice river became very clean in addition to calm, fuel consumption became very reduced even in the US their barrel value reached a minus number. “Wild animals in Africa are more disengaged to relax on the road that is usually a Safari track. In New York, the pollution reduces up to reduction 50 percent,” he said.
Learning from the state of earth’s health during this pandemic, he hopes that people can be wiser and understand that we need harmony with nature to achieve a balance and sustainability.
He invited the community to start and frequently care about the surrounding environment. One thing you should put in mind, concerning the situation is not similar to being an environmental activist or the forest savior. Still, we can do the simple thing as a form of care to saving the earth, such as saving electricity, saving water use, not excessive in consumption, and reducing the use of plastic, 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle), including by maintaining plants or gardens at home.
He said that currently, regarding the waste, the domination of the household production still focused on plastic. As we know, plastic is one of the trash that is hard to be destroyed. It takes 100-400 years to decompose the plastic so that it depends on our awareness, including the government. Moreover, there is no longer sanitary landfill to the waste treatment system, which 20-30 years ago became an idealistic landfill model. At this time, we should be aware that waste must pay. According to him, all parties need support so that there is a law on spent waste. The value depends on the volume removed by each individual, or RT, or group. “Why should we pay? It is because it sits for management costs. If they object to littering because they have to pay a premium, then do 3R, so the volume of disposed and paid waste will become small. This event, of course, will also affect lifestyle,” he said.
He added that if the community commits waste management and the environment, then it is a real action to save the earth. He cited a study from the International Center for Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, which noted that in general, global emissions in 2020 expected to decrease by 0.3 percent with this pandemic condition. “This condition can certainly rise significantly again so that the focus of post-pandemic economic improvement should also be to prioritize the use of renewable energy,” he said.
Author: Gusti Grehenson
Translator: Natasa A