Taking a rest on the shoulder of Montecito Peak the other day I admired the beauty of the clear blue sky above a little bright cloud peeking from behind the peak but realized something was missing from the panorama. Narrow vapor trails usually parallel the sky above the Camino and disperse and widen as they drift over town and across the channel, but there were none. No planes were flying that day and likely very few will during the coronavirus pandemic. While today is near the beginning of a likely long string of bad days for its human inhabitants, it was a good day for the earth. The emission of climate-change inducing gases has significantly diminished due to the sidelining of our cars, airplanes and cruise ships as we hunker down to survive the pandemic.
As a City of Santa Barbara Water Commissioner 20 years ago, I witnessed what I consider to be a remarkable change in our behavior. The decisions to build a desal plant and buy into the state water morass due to that last drought was agonizing for a community that prided itself on living within it means. The “March Miracle” rain event of course immediately then provided a glut of water to augment our costly newfound sources. The behavior change that seemed so remarkable to me was the fact that we did not immediately (or really ever, as far as I know) resume consumption at pre-drought levels. We did this because we had adapted to life with less and, importantly, had become more thoughtful regarding water use. This new austerity happened notwithstanding a tempting new plentiful supply.
This type of transformational thoughtfulness and behavior change can and should be encouraged again, this time with the higher and more daunting goal of stemming climate change.