How a Deadly Pandemic Cleared the Air: Narratives and Practices Linking COVID-19 with Air Pollution and Climate Change

Abstract

The recent COVID-19 pandemic revealed the intricate connections between human and planetary health. Air pollution cleared over the countries ordering lockdowns of nonessential businesses to flatten the curve of the pandemic. The links between pandemics and pollution are not obvious at first, yet the two phenomena have several characteristics in common. Both pandemics and pollution originate from specific locations but then spread globally, and both are human-induced rather than natural–hazard disasters. I examine narratives and practices linking COVID-19 with air pollution and climate change as the pandemic unfolds. I compare these findings with research on the Black Death plague in Europe and the air pollution in China’s Haze City. Applying the analytical frameworks from these two studies, I analyze media articles and reports on COVID-19 to explore risk experience, stress behaviours, and resistant discourse during the adaptive cycles of the pandemic to gain insights into current and future changes to sustainability.