Economic recovery for COVID-19 and climate

Thank you for your collective help in preventing COVID-19 from overwhelming our healthcare system. Unfortunately, the foundation of our health is still at risk because we are failing to prevent the climate and ecological crises from overwhelming Earth’s ecosystems. We face worse natural disasters, crop failures, seafood die offs, air pollution and pandemics unless we change our degenerative economic relationships with the natural world. With funding forthcoming for an economic recovery, it is crucial we build back better for a regenerative economy that respects planetary boundaries while providing profitable work, affordable energy and healthy lives.

Fossil fuels have given us great wealth while raising greenhouse gases to levels not seen for 23 million years. We are already feeling the effects with ocean warming and acidification, sea level rise, wildfires, ice melt, permafrost thawing and seafood die-offs. Bouncing back to business as usual will continue these trends, raising the risk of crossing irreversible tipping points in the climate system, which could result in severe societal disruption.

Just as mass mobilization for World War II helped the U.S. recover from the Great Depression, a mass mobilization to fight climate change can help our economy recover from the worst recession since then. Economic recovery investment on renewable energy, modernizing the grid, and electrification can lower the risk of runaway climate change, while creating 25 millions jobs over the next 15 years and saving households thousands of dollars in energy costs.

Green recovery investment can be paired with a carbon dividend to efficiently and cost effectively decarbonize the economy. While helping achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, a carbon dividend would create millions of American jobs in the first 20 years, and most people including most Alaskans would see a net boost in income as they would receive more in dividends than they would pay in fees. The immediate benefits to American health and labor alone from reduced air pollution would be worth $700 billion a year.

Alaska has abundant renewable energy resources and geography suitable for a proven and low cost method of storing large amounts of energy: pumped hydro. A recent report supported by Gov. Mike Dunleavy shows how wind and pumped hydro can meet the electricity needs of the entire railbelt with near zero emissions. Wind energy would pump water from lakes up into reservoirs and gravity would draw it back down through a turbine, generating electricity. This would function like a giant battery, storing energy when it is generated intermittently by renewables, and converting it to electricity as needed.

In the wake of the pandemic, we have the opportunity to leverage an economic recovery to manage the risk of runaway climate change. The application of eco-logical principles is key to creating a regenerative eco-nomy that provides a foundation for all while respecting planetary boundaries. Transcending our fragmented worldview and recognizing our interdependence will help us address our multiple systemic crises, from COVID-19 to climate change.

Darren Zal is a software developer in Anchorage and administrator of an Alaska Call Congress for Climate campaign.

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