In purely objective terms, the coronavirus outbreak and climate change could not be more different. Yet the politics of the two issues are eerily similar.
First, both issues are unnecessarily politicized. There is no reason why the two issues should be divided across the lines of right and left, or Republican and Democrat. There is no reason why news outlets should be opinionated when reporting on natural phenomena. Yet those who say we are about to die from climate change also say that we are in nothing less than the coronavirus apocalypse.
It does not help. In fact, it hurts both issues, regardless of whether we need more government or less. Rather than treating the coronavirus and climate change as problems that we can tackle with solutions, countless people present climate change as a punishment from some environmental deity that can only be appeased by sacrificing comforts of life such as our gas-powered cars, air conditioning, and those little shampoo bottles we use in hotels while traveling.
Discussions on what is a better strategy regarding climate change, prevention or adaptation (or both), are often treated as heresy. Discussions that perhaps we shut down too much of the economy too quickly due to the coronavirus were equated as wartime profiteering, at least, perhaps until recently.
Second, it does not help that at least one side present takes an absurdly moral high ground, suggesting that unless everyone else submits to their will and changes their lives, environmental and epidemiological apocalypses are imminent.
Third, many propose shutting down the economy for both the coronavirus and climate change. I guess if capitalism is your sworn enemy, any reason to shut it down is good enough.
Fourth, both climate change and the coronavirus seem to be valid vehicles to push through policies that have nothing to do with the issue. Climate change? Nationalize energy production!
The coronavirus? Nationalize production of medical equipment … and also pass the Green New Deal. Don‘t like paying for things? Well, for some activists, climate change demands a platform for “free” electricity, while the coronavirus similarly serves a rallying call for not paying your rent.
To be fair, those on the Right also have come out with calls for massive deregulation amid the coronavirus. But at least allowing beer trucks to deliver food, restaurants to sell groceries, car manufacturers to produce medical equipment, or merely getting stuff done faster makes sense in the coronavirus emergency. Especially when food is not being delivered to stores, restaurants have a lot of excess food they cannot serve customers, and people are literally dying because there are not enough ventilators to go around.
At the same time, there are two important differences between the coronavirus and climate change that, so far, look encouraging.
First, no Greta-Thunberg-esque figure has emerged in the battle against the novel coronavirus — at least, not yet. Imagine a random 16-year-old holding a press conference and being invited to the United Nations and the European Commission to share his or her thoughts on the coronavirus outbreak. That would seem silly, even insulting to the virus’s victims. But remember the backlash Treasury Department Secretary Steven Mnuchin faced merely for asking why the United States should take advice on investments in fossil fuels from a 17-year-old?
If we intuitively understand that advice should come from experts when it comes to the coronavirus, why the double standard when it comes to climate change?
Second, more and more people on both sides of the ideological spectrum have started voicing opinions that there is a downside to shutting down global economies due to the coronavirus. People correctly point out that safeguarding from infection is important, while noting it’s also important to make sure people don‘t starve to death due to fields unsown, crops unreaped, factories left idle, and restaurants shut down.
People are making a humanitarian argument that perhaps there are better alternatives to combating the coronavirus if the cost is an economic meltdown. This is a discussion absolutely worth having. The real world has real trade-offs with real consequences. Painless solutions to serious problems are incredibly rare.
It took a mere month of shutdowns of nonessential businesses such as restaurants for people to start saying that economic costs are too high. Yet when it comes to complete and costly overhaul of the entire economy, including very essential services, from electricity to transportation to agriculture, many of the same people switch to the “planet, not profits“ mantra?
The coronavirus seems to have reawakened both the can-do spirit and the realistic worldview that there are no solutions, only trade-offs. Let’s hope this perspective lingers long after this deadly virus is gone.
Zilvinas Silenas (@zsilenas) is President of the Foundation for Economic Education.
