Hello, and welcome to this latest edition of From a Climate Correspondent, a newsletter exploring the climate crisis around the globe.
We are four environmental journalists working in regions outside our home continent. Every week we share insights on the fight against climate change, from our adoptive countries – namely Kenya, Hong Kong, Costa Rica and India.
Thanks for reading!
From a Climate Correspondent team - India, Jocelyn, Lou and Mat
Disaster Unmasked?
Letter no.14 by India Bourke, Hong Kong
Masks are now ubiquitous in Hong Kong, even during 'villain hitting' rituals under a Causeway Bay bridge. Image by India Bourke.
To wear a mask or not to wear a mask, is that the question? It seems like such a small issue when I’m so far away from those I care about, stuck watching from a distance as much of the rest of the world succumbs to vast, almost overwhelming, internal shutdowns - similar to those experienced last month by Hong Kong, except with seemingly even wider consequences.
Yet I can’t shake their image from my mind. I don’t think this is only because a sea of veiled faces still meets me each time I leave my flat. Nor because they are the telltale virus-signature in almost every news story I illustrate at work. But more because of the lingering “over-reaction” debate surrounding them - and whether this might help unpack how communities should respond to approaching disaster of all kinds.
That also goes for ecological collapse too. As the virus’s impact on the climate crisis is starting to be queried, many are thankfully pointing out that global shudowns raise as many problems as solutions - with more work also urgently needed on the greener opportunities opening up.
And on a psychological level, might even small things like masks help highlight wider questions about when something previously considered an excessive step might become an appropriate-level response?
Back in early February, when Hong Kong leapt into virus-containment mode, I was shocked at how fast mask-wearing became an unspoken must. The pro-democracy protests had already turned face-covering into an intensely political act, but this all-out, pan-city participation was something new.
Masks were the first precaution to be adopted and I imagine will be the last to leave (if this new-normal ever wanes). It felt like they inspired as well as scared, and whatever my own doubts about their efficacy, within a few days my facial features were also veiled in steamy solidarity.
Furthermore, now that the city’s infection total has stabilised for the present at around 150 cases and five deaths, those feelings have also swelled to pride on Hong Kong’s behalf.
Along with other Asian Pacific countries hit badly by the 2009 SARS outbreak, such as South Korea and Taiwan, the city’s combination of school closures, government-enforced quarantine for travellers, and voluntary social-distancing - including mask-wearing - seems to be paying off.
So are the masks really part of this success?
According to WHO, general public mask-wearing is misguided: they don’t provide virus protection unless you are caring for someone sick or are sick yourself, so you shouldn’t use up a resource urgently needed by medical professionals.
And yet some experts have been querying this information, pointing to WHO officials’ own habits and to masks’ use in protecting people who don’t yet know they’re infected (or, by extension, to others from catching it from them).
Plus, from personal experience, putting my mask on each time I take public transport to work or walk to a restaurant (which are starting to fill up again here at least) somehow feels symbolically key to fighting this thing: a small square of empowerment, and an emblem of how collective endevour and - perhaps more problematically - conformity, are qualities to be admired in times of crisis.
Now doing something without concrete proof of its efficacy is not without its flaws and risks, especially when applied to larger things like school closures. Or, in the case of climate change, cutting-back high-carbon activities.
First, there is the cost to those least able to pay - and even mask-wearing’s small gesture is hitting the poorest hard, with some Hong Kong residents resorting to wearing the same piece of material for weeks, in some cases until the ear-strings turn yellow.
Then there is the often unaccounted cost to nature. Carelessly discarded-masks - all containing tiny plastic-fibres -are turning up in their thousands on beaches and walking-trails, while the environmental impact of increased mask production have yet to be calculated.
And then there is social cost to already-frayed community relationships. The other night in my towerblock’s lobby I watched the normally calm and collected building manager seethe with anxiety as he prevented a young (and loudly swearing) deliveroo-driver from going up in the lift without one. The probably time-stressed delivery-man was eventually thrown out, his drop-off, perhaps to someone under home-quarantine, never made.
Plus on a more existential level, there is also the question of whether the masks are worn altruistically to protect others from infection, or primarily to defend the wearer. Among the small sample of Hong Kong-born friends I asked at a hotpot dinner the other week, the answer was overwhelmingly the latter: “they are the selfish-masks,” one young woman said.
Only connect
None of the above bodes particularly well for arguments in favour of leaping into rushed responses, either to the virus or to rising carbon emissions.
Yet what mask-wearing perhaps does speak to is an argument for disseminating as much information as possible about the advantages and risks of any individual line of action; then openly and rationally discussing that balance.
For while some untested policies won’t be considered worth it, others might. The point is to get the information out there, share knowledge of the lived experiences and weigh the risks.
I hope this all doesn’t sound too obvious, but at a time when I know many peers are despairing about feeling relatively useless compared to nurses, doctors or immunologists, it seems important to remember how much the work of journalists, NGOs, artists and researchers matters too.
As I write this, China is announcing plans to kick out American journalists, my social-media is filling with fear-mongering conspiracy-theories, and stories from Chinese friends experiencing increased racism are mounting by the day.
So while only time may reveal whether mass mask-wearing is a must, the debate around them is perhaps already showing the importance of keeping an open mind, sharing information and connecting across the globe. The mask of ignorance is ultimately the most important one to lift - even as more and more of us cover our faces.
Must reads from the region
Masks and billionaires - by Cissy Zhou, Inkstone News China’s richest man, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, has donated one million face masks and 500,000 virus test kits to the United States.
Why telling people they don’t need masks backfired - by Zeynep Tufekci, New York Times An information science professor takes on the mis-information debate.
The Coronavirus pandemic is bringing down emissions, but not for long - by Matt Simon, Wired Working out how the coronavirus crisis can be used as an ‘opportunity to prepare for a post-oil world’ will grow ever more essential as the coming weeks tick by. This article helps make a start.
Now is the time to overreact - by Ian Bogost, Atlantic Considers the past examples in favour of preparing for the worst.
South Korea’s ruling political party becomes East Asia’s first to announce Green New Deal manifesto - Greenpeace International South Korea is the first country in East Asia whose ruling political party embraced the idea of a comprehensive Green New Deal in response to the ongoing global climate crisis.
What else I've been watching
Wuhan: Life under Lockdown, BBC Our World I’ve mostly been staving off existential dread by watching the (mostly utterly heart-warming) coronavirus clips and Tiktoks that have been flooding my whats-app chats: if you haven’t yet seen it, then the Italian airforce’s Nessun Dorma flyover is a must-watch. But the scene I can’t get out of my head is in fact from this BBC documentary about life inside the locked-down city at the heart of the outbreak. I only hope communities back home in the UK respond with similar fellow-feeling and aid.
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