By Andrew Wesst,
During the early days of the COVID pandemic, a rather clear delineation was discovered within the American psyche, cleaving down the line of precautionary lockdowns.
For many Americans, the idea of shutting the nation down (even for “two weeks to flatten the curve”) was preposterous. An economic guillotine just waiting for the blade to fall. We knew we ran the risk of creating an impossible-to-recover situation, yet the left pushed us directly into the path of the speeding calamity.
Years later, one Biden administration official appears to be lamenting the lockdown as the “good ol’ days,” at least environmentally speaking.
During an interview with ABC News on Monday, outgoing Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the Department of State Monica Medina stated that during the lockdowns that took place during the coronavirus pandemic, many people “really appreciated how much they enjoyed getting to be in the environment more days than they would” if they had been at work and that “we saw pollution levels go down and people went, huh, my quality of life is a little bit better now” because they didn’t have to worry as much about air pollution as they did before.
What exactly did she mean?
Medina said that “a lot of people during the pandemic” discovered a greater appreciation for the environment, “because they were at home, and when they went outside, they really appreciated how much they enjoyed getting to be in the environment more days than they would if they would have been in the office. And in fact, we saw pollution levels go down and people went, huh, my quality of life is a little bit better now that I don’t have to worry about whether it’s code red day for smog or air pollution. So, people did become more aware.”
The idea of glorifying some of the lockdown’s effect on the nation without concern or care for the more deleterious reverberations is something that much of the country will not appreciate.
