disastrous environmental impact

15 Must-Read Articles on COVID-19 for the Environmental Sector

15 Must-Read Articles on COVID-19 for the Environmental Sector

Sustainability and environmental issues will simultaneously be highlighted and reconsidered as mankind deals with controlling the spread of COVID-19. There’s no doubt that health experts believe novel viruses will continue to be an issue as humans rapidly encroach on natural spaces and come into contact with infected animals. And while preserving biodiversity alone is reason enough to ban further encroachment, deadly uncontrollable pandemics should persuade us to pay further heed to constant deforestation. COVID-19 is an environmental issue turned health pandemic, and the entire environmental sector as a whole will be affected by it one way or another. One guarantee of COVID-19 is that many people are home and considering how environmental effects have drastically changed modern human life in one split instance.

This pandemic could be an opportunity for change in the US, The Coronavirus outbreak could pave the way for a new and more just America by David A. LoveWe’ve selected some of the top COVID-19 stories that address some serious concerns in the Environmental Sector. If you’re an environmental professional, here are some excellent articles to read when considering how the coronavirus will affect your industry.

 

To start things off, here’s an article that looks for the opportunities ahead of us to make a more just United States. This pandemic could be an opportunity for change in the US, The Coronavirus outbreak could pave the way for a new and more just America by David A. Love

The Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Sector

The Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Sector | A.R. Marketing House

While most industries are beginning to suffer economically, a stimulus package for handling COVID-19, which includes funding for renewable energy, will be a wise move for the U.S. In the article “Unemployment poised to skyrocket, creating urgent need to spur renewables: Obama veteran of 2008 financial crisis,” Catherine Morehouse discusses the reason why funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy will help bridge some of the renewable momentum from 2019 and employ many who are or will become unemployed.

Beyond the virtues of lowering carbon emissions and repairing climate change damage from the oil industry, renewable energy offers much-needed reliability as an underlying asset. “How Coronavirus Makes The Case For Renewable Energy,” discusses how renewable energy offers more stability in cash flow as an underlying asset compared to highly volatile oil-based energy sources.

 

Waste Reduction & Prevention

Waste Reduction & Prevention | A.R. Marketing House

If the latter part of the 20 teens were sustainability’s liftoff, what does 2020 hold for all those zero-waste initiatives? In the article, “Can the zero-waste movement survive the coronavirus?”  L.V. Anderson breaks down the facets of our new normal in the midst of zero-waste awareness. One example is how carrying reusable items such as a water bottle, allows us to dictate the cleanliness of the bottle, as opposed to single-use which causes us to face the reality of coronavirus living on the plastic, potentially transferred by someone who has touched it before.

Deforestation and COVID19

Deforestation and COVID19 | A.R. Marketing House

 

Deforestation is on the minds of those exploring zoological hypotheses of how COVID-19 transferred from a bat, snake, or rat to a human. These three articles explore forest loss and the implications this has for the emergence of increased infectious disease.

How Deforestation Drives The Emergence Of Novel Coronaviruses” 

“Bats, Coronaviruses, and Deforestation: Toward the Emergence of Novel Infectious Diseases?”

“The Corona Connection – Forest loss drives viruses as well as climate change—and Indigenous peoples are on the frontlines of the destruction”

 

Air Pollution & Climate Change

Air Pollution & Climate Change and Coronavirus | A.R. Marketing House

There has yet to be a proven correlation between air pollution and the COVID-19 outbreak. These articles explore how the novel virus will impact air filtration system innovations, our reaction to climate change, our approach to taking action, and the humanity necessary to address some of our biggest challenges ahead.

“Coronavirus, climate change, and the environment”

“Coronavirus threat prompts USF inventors of air purifier to accelerate testing” 

“The key ingredient to surviving both coronavirus and climate change: our shared sense of humanity”

 

COVID19 and the Impact on Water

COVID19 and the Impact on Water | A.R. Marketing House

 

One of the first perplexing items people in California were seen hoarding, as stay in place orders were issued, was bottled water. While undoubtedly, this makes sense for people who live in areas with compromised water, for everyone else, it made very little sense. The bottled water hoarding brought into question if water supplies were at risk to carry COVID-19, and what risks are involved with purchasing plastic bottled water as each bottle was recently handled by another person. Tap water is more strictly regulated than the bottled water being hoarded.

 

In the article, “Poor water infrastructure is a greater risk than coronavirus, says UN,” Fiona Harvey delves into the numbers of deteriorating water infrastructure and the impact this has on lives around the world.

 

“Coronavirus doesn’t jeopardize tap water, but it might be carried in raw sewage”

 

“Coronavirus in Plumbing System, How did the outbreak occur in Hong Kong, and is there a risk in the U.S.?” by Pete DeMarco, explains how COVID-19 has the potential to spread amongst residents in high rise buildings via a vertical wastewater pipe or drainage stack.

 

COVID19 Impact on Food & Farming

COVID19 Impact on Food & Farming | A.R. Marketing House

Farmworkers who are at the front line delivering sustenance, labor in crews of a hundred people are at high risk of becoming infected. There are minimal protections and a life sentence of risk, as laid out in, “Farmworkers Are in the Coronavirus Crosshairs, Farmworkers work, live, and travel in crowded conditions, and are being allowed few if any safety measures against COVID-19—which puts them and the food system at risk.”

We must both prevent and prepare for pandemics beyond COVID-19, as explained in the article, “We should start thinking about the next one’: Coronavirus is just the first of many pandemics to come, environmentalists warn.”

For the entire world, life will never be the same again. While we deal with this pandemic, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for humanity. That light comes in the form of awakening to that which is most important, like cleaner air, more renewable energy, better water management, better forest management, better farming and food practices, and less waste. Although the status quo is challenging many environmental laws, a larger swath of humanity is spending more time reading and learning about the environmental issues that impact everyone’s quality of life, as seen with the rapid spread of the coronavirus.

Posted by ARMarketingHouse in Blog
The Fyre Festival Fiasco | Who cleaned up when the party (that never happened) was over?

The Fyre Festival Fiasco | Who cleaned up when the party (that never happened) was over?

In the beginning, there was an app. It was built to connect people who need music with people who provide music. Throwing a big ole party in the form of a music festival to promote the launch of this app sounded like the perfect way to introduce the industry to a great product. Score for the marketing team.

But then, it couldn’t just be a music festival, it needed to be a luxury music festival… a luxury destination music festival… where famous rappers and beautiful models frolic with other festival goers in the white sand and crystal clear water… and the pigs! Everyone gets to swim with pigs, and cruise on yachts, and lounge around in villas, and drink cocktails all day, and have the event catered by world-renowned chefs using premium imported ingredients.

All this would be carried out by people who never put on a festival of any sort before, on an island not equipped to handle a crowd of more than 6,000 people. We know how it all turned out for Fyre festival. It was a foolish, beautiful illusion.

VICTIM 1 of Fyre Festival- THE ENVIRONMENT | A.R. Marketing House

VICTIM 1: THE ENVIRONMENT

Now, try to figure out what happened to everything they left behind. It looked like a hurricane hit Great Exuma in April 2017.

 

It looked like a hurricane hit because festival organizers used hurricane relief shelters as the “luxury tent” accommodations for festival attendees. There were blow up mattresses, bedding, and pillows left behind. School style metal lockers that were never used lay in heaps. A stage was erected for musicians who never played.

 

Organizers never had to worry about lack of showers and toilets, or running water not being available in the area where they were holding the event because everyone got off the island as soon as they could. There were used portable toilets left behind, food and drinks containers from the hundreds of people who did come. Roker’s Point sits on bluffs overlooking the ocean, what was the environmental damage of all the waste left behind?

 

According to the United Nations Environment Programme:

“If it is to be sustainable in the long run, tourism must incorporate the principles and practices of sustainable consumption. Sustainable consumption includes building consumer demand for products that have been made using cleaner production techniques, and for services – including tourism services – that are provided in a way that minimizes environmental impacts. The tourism industry can play a key role in providing environmental information and raising awareness among tourists of the environmental consequences of their actions. Tourists and tourism-related businesses consume an enormous quantity of goods and services; moving them toward using those that are produced and provided in an environmentally sustainable way, from cradle to grave, could have an enormous positive impact on the planet’s environment.”

 

Tourism can have a disastrous environmental impact if not properly managed. The Fyre Festival is a perfect example of monumental mishandling of an event. We looked, but we couldn’t find the answer to what seemed like a simple question: who cleaned up after the Fyre Festival?

 

Fyre Festival VICTIM 2 - LOCAL BUSINESS OWNERS | A.R. Marketing House

 

VICTIM 2: LOCAL BUSINESS OWNERS

Maryann Rolle, now famous from Netflix’s documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, is the owner of Exuma Point Bar and Grill. With little time to prepare, she was tasked with providing sustenance to festival goers after Fyre organizer Billy McFarland fired the catering company originally slated. Rolle was never paid by Fyre. A GoFundMe page was set up to help reimburse her and others on Great Exuma for out-of-pocket expenses including hotel stays, product, and wages.

Wage theft was another heap of garbage Fyre Fest left behind. People on the island worked for weeks to erect the tent city of Fyre Fest and they were never paid. Damages have been awarded in American courts to Americans defrauded by Billy McFarland. Damages need to be awarded to the Bahamians who provided goods and services of which McFarland and all the other Fyre employees and attendees on the island took full advantage.

 

VICTIM 3: A NATION’S REPUTATION

Instead of seeking legal retribution, the Bahamians are trying to reassure the world that this disaster was not theirs.

Tourism is an extremely important component of the GDP of The Commonwealth of the Bahamas. Made up of approximately 700 cays (pronounce KEYS), islands, and islets atop an ancient coral reef, the Bahamas are well known as a private place for a luxury vacation. Most of the area is uninhabited or privately owned, but the tourism industry employs many of the inhabitants on the rest of the islands directly and indirectly. Weeks went by and the Bahamians working for Fyre didn’t get paid for labor they already provided. How do they make that money back?

 

Fyre Festival VICTIM 4- THE APRIL FOOLS | A.R. Marketing House

 

VICTIM 4: THE APRIL FOOLS

In April of 2017, a small group of people convinced themselves and others that throwing a bunch of money around would magically manifest one of the most amazing product launches the world had ever seen. It didn’t work.

Island residents worked hard, opened their homes to strangers, fed them, gave them drinks– all in good faith that they would be repaid. They are still waiting.

Fyre Festival goers were promised a beautiful illusion, but that’s all it ever was. They paid handsomely for quite an experience. They didn’t get what they expected, and plenty of people laughed at them for believing any of it existed in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

Resources:

http://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/envi/four.html

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/fyre-festival-great-exuma-bahamas-tourism

http://www.tribune242.com/news/2017/may/23/bahamian-vendor-outrage-100k-fyre-festival-debts/

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/fyre-festival-documentary-review-capitalism

https://sustainabletourism.net/?sustainable-tourism/islands/

https://traveltips.usatoday.com/effects-tourism-caribbean-63368.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5055478/

https://www.sandals.com/emerald-bay/

 

Posted by ARMarketingHouse in Blog, Environmental