Are Pandemics Good for the Environment?
sapiens.org
sapiens.org
longer answer: while there is a short term gain from the pendemic, with less humans driving, flying, cruising, etc. HOWEVER this is not a good thing. This is a small blip in the overall global warming fight, we need to reduce emissions by A LOT over a long period of time. To trully see the benefits we need a deadly pandemic (maybe even more deadly than COVI-19 to scare people enough) to be happening yearly, making tourism and such a thing most people avoid.
If this will permanently destroy the cruise industry, and slow down flights for multiple years, this would be great. But it most likely won't. So while we may have received a momentary pause because factories are shut down, we might see things like china removing emission regulation in an effort to make up for lost manufacturing.
This must not stall the global warming debates and policies.
(i) The article points out there can be some long term gains as well as has been seen in the past, for example, with self-empowerment of labour class. Currently this is seen, as the author points out, with polls showing governments keep to work together more in future for Green New Deal. Another example would be society as a whole being more supportive of fundamental scientific research; Companies adapting to new ways to work-from-home (Twitter made news recently allowing employess to WFH forever even after the pandemic ends) and so on.
(ii) The author argues against the ecofascism ideology giving examples why it is bad which is against your idea that a deadlier pandemic will help. Why would end of tourism industry be good for the environment? Tourism industry in a lot of cases helps sustain the habitat for wildlife (see sources in the article).
(iii) Was it US or China that pulled out of the Green New Deal earlier this year? We do not know what the future will bring but we can already see which global economic power is currently handling the crisis better.
So short answer: Maybe.