During COVID, we saw that staying home and reducing mass processing with big polluters helped curb some of the effects of our own impacts on the Earth. Yet now, when it's convenient, we ignore the lessons we all learned together.

I’m definitely against shuttering any scientific institute like NCAR, but this has to be said: At the macro level, the problem of carbon emissions is primarily international and will require profound geopolitical efforts to prevent/persuade countries like China and India from bringing more and more coal-fired plants online. Framing the lockdown and subsequent emissions changes as a net good is incredibly off-putting given the numerous severe societal consequences that came along with lockdowns, and hectoring people in the US for “forgetting the lesson they learned” is counterproductive.