Earth Day and COVID-19

'Great Pause' Shows Hope For the Environment

WASHINGTON, D.C., USA, April 17, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The halt to most activities during the COVID-19 pandemic has yielded an unexpected bonus for the environment, according to two top energy, environment, and industry consultants, speaking about Earth Day, April 22, on “White House Chronicle.” They are Jan Vrins and Matthew Banks, both of Guidehouse, the globe-circulating consultancy.

Vrins told Llewellyn King, host of the weekly news and public affairs program which airs on PBS and other outlets, that he was excited to see a picture taken from a town in Punjab, a state in northwestern India, where people can see Himalayan peaks for the first time in 30 years. King noted that there are again fish in the Venetian Lagoon and the air has cleared over many cities, including Mumbai and Los Angeles.

A highly regarded energy consultant, Vrins has been guiding electric utility clients toward a more resilient and greener future. He said on the program that because of the pandemic, there is a new awareness. “We still have climate change as a ‘gray rhino,’ a big threat to our society and the world at large. I hope that utilities and all their stakeholders will address the urgency of the big threat which still lies ahead of us,” he said.

Guidehouse’s Banks, who has worked with large consumer goods clients, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, drew attention on the program to the “circular economy” – from product creation to consumption to packaging disposal -- which aims to create more recyclable products, or those that are totally biodegradable. He said Johnson & Johnson had been an early convert to environmentalism. King reminded him of the importance and symbolism of McDonald’s switch from Styrofoam “clamshell” packaging for its hamburgers to wrapping them in paper.

“This is this is an important moment in time. Folks have talked about this as being The Great Pause. I would like to think on this Earth Day that we need to think about how that bounce back or rebound from The Great Pause can be done in a way that responds to the climate crisis,” Banks said on the program.

In his weekly syndicated column, King wrote, “The sense of gloom and hopelessness that has attended a litany of environmental woes needn’t be inevitable. The message here is very hopeful: With some moderation in human activity, we can save the environment and ourselves.” These columns are available on insidesources.com and whchronicle.com.

“White House Chronicle" is a weekly news and public affairs program, now in its 23rd year on PBS. The program's host is nationally syndicated columnist Llewellyn King, and its co-host is journalist Linda Gasparello.

“White House Chronicle” airs nationwide on select PBS and public, educational and government (PEG) access television stations. It airs worldwide on Voice of America Television and Radio in English and Chinese.

The program's audio airs four times weekends on SiriusXM Radio's popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), Channel 124.

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