This photo has been making the rounds on Twitter, although it was taken and shared by this photographer on Instagram. It's a drone photo of Echo Park in the foreground and downtown L.A. in the background.

It's quite impactful to see this. We all know L.A. as a traffic-congested, smog-ridden city, with a perpetual tan-and-orange-ish haze blanketing the air. And yet, here we vibrant clear blue skies. This CNN article confirms that it is indeed the drastically-reduced human activity that allows L.A. to no longer claim to be one of the most polluted cities in the world—for now.

So we might be compelled to conclude that such a dramatic negative impact of just one species—commerce down to a trickle and the resulting economy tanked, jobs decimated, social activities halted, rising death tolls—means the rest of the natural world gets a chance to heal.

But only for a little bit.

Because as soon as we figure out how to minimize the impact of this particular virus, we'll move quickly to resume all of our human activity and its resulting impact on the planet—land, sea, and air.

While I'm not quite sure if I mean it in jest or wholeheartedly, I have remarked that it is humans that are the worst virus of all. Agent Smith says as much in The Matrix. It is absurd and hypocritical for me to be so serious with this comment, me from my privileged and comfortable position. I know that, which is why I sometimes sadistically wish I was forced to reckon with Agent Smith's thesis in real life. And, thus, here we are.

We humans have used our brain and willpower to further our own special (that is, relating to species) interests for thousands of years. When will we turn our ingenuity towards advancing the health of the planet's entire natural world over just our own interests? Scientists are telling us—screaming, probably—that the pursuit of our own advancement to the detriment of all the other natural ecoystems will inevitably result in our own destruction.

And yet, the human animal is terrible at planning for the long-term. See the stock market.

I'll take a page from Anand Giridharadas' playbook and suggest that we need our governments to lead the way with strong action. Changing our own lives on our own accord, setting up more NGOs, or asking billionaires to solve the problem won't cut it. And our governments can only do the most effective job if we vote in elected officials who put reducing human impact on the earth at the forefront of their agenda.

So I hope we do just that. Vote for candidates who accept the facts of climate science (I hate the phrase “believe in climate change”) and will demand our industries adopt new ways of doing business in the interest of ecological harmony—or let the ones who can't die.

It'd be nice to see L.A. like this all the time.

#coronavirus #climatechange