The actual first cause and patient zero of coronavirus may be unknown, but CNN climate correspondent Bill Weir on Thursday's New Day had another hypothesis: climate denialism and industrialization. The cable journalist went even farther, offering an upside to the brutal and painful virus wreaking havoc on the world.
While some on the left have touted the environmental benefits of economic shutdowns, Weir was worried they would not be enough, "satellite imagery shows how nitrogen dioxide pollution over North America's big cities is down by as much as 30%. But the blanket of heat trapping gases around our planet is still thicker than ever. There seems to be this perception that maybe the virus has helped humanity buy some time when it comes to global warming."
It “helped” humanity and “bought” us some time? Over 180,000 people are dead worldwide and the economy is in ruins. Talk about mixed up priorities.
He then asked Dr. Jonathan Foley of Project Drawdown, "What's wrong with that assumption?" Foley explained that, "We have to keep doing this even more and do it for the next 30 years to really begin to bend the curve on the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."
Weir then logically predicted that will be a spike in pollution when the economy gets going again after an extended shutdown, but strangely decided to blame President Trump, "Thanks to the current oil crash, when the lockdown is lifted we'll see the lowest gas prices in generations. And with Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency gutting dozens of regulations, experts say a spike in pollution seems inevitable."
After urging viewers to make every day Earth Day, Weir concluded by ignoring the entire history of plagues and the expert consensus on this particular plague and claimed, "Virologists tried to warn us that an invisible enemy would come out of the jungles if we kept cutting all of them down and they were right. So, if anything good can come of this, Aliysn [Camerota], maybe it is the understanding that the climatologists who warning about the invisible enemy in our sky and our seas, maybe we should take them seriously too."
Here is a transcript for the April 23 show:
CNN
New Day with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman
7:57 AM ET
BILL WEIR: And before and after satellite imagery shows how nitrogen dioxide pollution over North America's big cities is down by as much as 30%. But the blanket of heat trapping gases around our planet is still thicker than ever. There seems to be this perception that maybe the virus has helped humanity buy some time when it comes to global warming. What's wrong with that assumption?
JONATHAN FOLEY: We have to keep doing this even more and do it for the next 30 years to really begin to bend the curve on the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It’s kind of like having a really huge bathtub, in the sky filled with pollution and we have the faucet pouring, pouring, pouring more in and all we have done is kind of turn down the faucet a little bit, but it is still filling up.
WEIR: Thanks to the current oil crash, when the lockdown is lifted we'll see the lowest gas prices in generations. And with Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency gutting dozens of regulations, experts say a spike in pollution seems inevitable. Both the EPA and Earth Day were born when the air and water got too foul for everyday Americans to ignore. Fifty years later, science is warning that the storms, floods, and fires of the climate crisis are growing too frequent and too severe to ignore. Saving what's left will take everyday folk everywhere deciding the planet deserves more than one minor holiday like a dead president deciding that to save life as we know it, every day should be Earth Day. Virologists tried to warn us that an invisible enemy would come out of the jungles if we kept cutting all of them down and they were right. So, if anything good can come of this, Aliysn, maybe it is the understanding that the climatologists who warning about the invisible enemy in our sky and our seas, maybe we should take them seriously too.
