Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an immense loss of human life, increased economic uncertainty, and negatively impacted individuals' mental health and close relationships. At the same time, experts have noted a concurrent improvement in many environmental quality indicators, including significant decreases in both localized air pollution and global greenhouse gas emissions. These positive trends are due to changes in human behavior necessitated by social distancing and self-quarantining measures (e.g., reduced car and air travel). However, there is already evidence that these improvements in environmental quality are only temporary. This suggests that more intentional efforts will be necessary in order to maintain positive environmental benefits and address major environmental issues as the world gets back to some version of pre-pandemic economic and social activity. Still, our collective experience over the course of the pandemic provides clear evidence that such change is possible and on a rapid timetable. Our individual and collective responses to COVID-19 reveal that we do indeed have the ability to respond to novel societal threats in highly coordinated and effective ways, suggesting that confronting the existential threat of climate change may in fact be feasible. Here, we theorize that the COVID-19 pandemic has potentially activated and made more salient some key psychological mechanisms—including norms of fairness and reciprocity, feelings of gratitude, and consideration of personal legacies—that previous empirical work suggests can be harnessed to promote beneficent intergenerational decision-making aimed at solving the environmental challenges we and our descendants will face in the twenty-first century.
Highlights
Near the end of 2019, a new coronavirus spread rapidly around the globe, causing an epidemic of acute respiratory syndrome (COVID-19)
We suggest that the powerful ways in which the COVID-19 crisis has made considerations of fairness and inequality and widely salient reveals a possible opportunity to leverage this core prosocial motivation in the context of other fairness-involving issues such as climate change
The pandemic has demonstrated in a powerful way that humans are capable of acting in a manner that emphasizes altruism and reciprocity. Building upon such collective efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as well as the collective acknowledgment of the inequalities that have been emphasized as a result of the pandemic as a stepping stone for future endeavors could prove beneficial in promoting collective action efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change. This theorizing is in line with extant research which finds that of the five major moral foundations that influence decision making processes and moral judgement, concerns about compassion and fairness are the two most robust predictors of willingness to act to prevent climate change (Dickinson et al, 2016)
Summary
Near the end of 2019, a new coronavirus spread rapidly around the globe, causing an epidemic of acute respiratory syndrome (COVID-19). Building upon such collective efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as well as the collective acknowledgment of the inequalities that have been emphasized as a result of the pandemic as a stepping stone for future endeavors could prove beneficial in promoting collective action efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change This theorizing is in line with extant research which finds that of the five major moral foundations that influence decision making processes and moral judgement, concerns about compassion and fairness are the two most robust predictors of willingness to act to prevent climate change (Dickinson et al, 2016). As long as the historical examples and exemplars are utilized in ways that are not indoctrinating, such approaches could instill or maintain norms of fairness that are key in promoting fairness in intergenerational decision making
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