Emmanuel Koro
In just three months, Covid-19 has proven to be one of the fastest moving, most infectious, and deadliest illnesses to confront humankind in the last 700 years.

Despite this, medical specialists and an array of scientists have given the world an easy and effective way to end the spread of the Covid-19 disease. They have told us to keep at least one metre between individuals.

Following the outbreak of the Covid-19 in South Africa, we recently started supporting the social distance call by distributing environmentally friendly cotton T-shirts in Johannesburg, with the slogan “MAINTAIN THE METRE”. This week, Johannesburg was declared South Africa’s epicentre of the Covid-19 disease.

It has the highest number of Covid-19 infected people in South Africa. Keeping a metre of space between every individual at any time — the “social distance” — will generally prevent anyone infected with Covid-19 from passing the virus to another person who is not. Prevention is always better, cheaper and safer than attempting a cure.

“Thank you very much for distributing the T-shirts in the Daveyton community,” said Mr Freddie Motaung, Daveyton Township Local Economic Development Committee member, recently. “Alerting people on how social distance prevents the spread of Covid-19 and saves human lives is a timely and welcome campaign that should be continued.”

Fight To Reduce Climate Change
Significantly, the global fight against the coronavirus has important lessons for those on the front lines of battling the ravages of climate change on the environment. Currently, the concern for climate change has been overtaken by the urgent need to end the Covid-19 pandemic. But once we have Covid-19 behind us, we can once again put climate change on top of the world’s agenda of issues to be resolved.

Just as global leaders in China, the United States, and Europe were agonisingly slow to respond to the coronavirus, so they have been just as afraid to deal with climate change in a meaningful way.

They clearly fear too much disruption, too much controversy, too much cost, too much political risk. But just as health experts had to push political leaders into emergency action lest they be blamed for unthinkable numbers of deaths from Covid-19, so individual citizens have to take the lead in slowing the impact of climate change on the environment.

These citizens know that climate change will cause great droughts and staggering floods in the future. These events will set off major political and economic disruptions in multiple countries. At the least, the world is likely to be inundated with environmental refugees – both humankind and wildlife — in many of the countries of Africa. Where will they go? Who will care for their needs? What might they do to survive? What should we do now to prepare?

Citizens in more than 180 countries across the globe have dramatically changed their lifestyles for fear of being killed by or killing someone else with Covid-19.

Climate change may soon present the same stark choice to everyone on the planet. We need to learn, to prepare to reduce climate change now and avoid leaving it until it’s too late, when the world can’t reverse but will inevitably have to suffer from its consequences.

Among other things, wildlife-rich Africa has the primary role towards saving wildlife from the ravages of climate change.

It’s against this background that a powerful appeal to climate change activists is being made by Los Angeles-based public policy expert Godfrey Harris and the writer of this piece. We are urging the activists to reverse the ravages of climate change on the environment.

We want to join hands with the climate activists to show world leaders the danger of delayed reaction to disasters as occurred with Covid-19. Harris and I are presenting their approach later this year, in a new book entitled Death Defies Debate. The book warns world leaders of the consequences of ignoring the impact of climate change on wildlife.

The world has shown in a very short time an unprecedented commitment and dedication to rapid lifestyle changes in order to end the coronavirus pandemic.

The great lesson is that the world can use the same spirit and techniques in the fight to reduce the severe impact of climate change on wildlife and humankind.

Harris noted: “The most important learning from Covid-19 for climate change is this: Don’t wait, Don’t hesitate. Do it now, on your own, if you can’t find support.” He added: “Covid-19 taught us one overriding lesson: Delay means disaster.”

Climate change scientists, under the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have long told the world it needed to change its ways, particularly in the burning of fossil fuels, in order to reduce climate change. They will have no other choice if they want to save the planet.

Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based environmentalist who can be contacted on [email protected] or
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