Traffic and Pollution Plummet as US Cities Shut Down for Coronavirus (nytimes.com) 55
In cities across the United States, traffic on roads and highways has fallen dramatically over the past week as the coronavirus outbreak forces people to stay at home and everyday life grinds to a halt. Pollution has dropped too. From a report: A satellite that detects emissions in the atmosphere linked to cars and trucks shows huge declines in pollution over major metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Chicago and Atlanta. In Los Angeles, as businesses and schools have closed this month and drivers have stayed off the roads, air pollution has declined and traffic jams have all but vanished.
Preliminary data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-5P satellite show that atmospheric levels of nitrogen dioxide, which are influenced in large part by car and truck emissions, were considerably lower over Los Angeles in the first two weeks of March compared to the same period last year. Air pollution from vehicles has likewise plummeted in the Seattle area, which had one of the earliest recognized coronavirus outbreaks in the country. Traffic patterns there changed drastically before most other cities. [...] In New York City, residents are less dependent on car travel than in other metro areas, but vehicle traffic has still seen a steep drop-off in recent days as office buildings, schools and restaurants have shut down. On Wednesday afternoon, rush-hour traffic moved 36 percent faster than normal as the roads cleared out, according to data from INRIX.
Preliminary data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-5P satellite show that atmospheric levels of nitrogen dioxide, which are influenced in large part by car and truck emissions, were considerably lower over Los Angeles in the first two weeks of March compared to the same period last year. Air pollution from vehicles has likewise plummeted in the Seattle area, which had one of the earliest recognized coronavirus outbreaks in the country. Traffic patterns there changed drastically before most other cities. [...] In New York City, residents are less dependent on car travel than in other metro areas, but vehicle traffic has still seen a steep drop-off in recent days as office buildings, schools and restaurants have shut down. On Wednesday afternoon, rush-hour traffic moved 36 percent faster than normal as the roads cleared out, according to data from INRIX.
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Dude, not only are you off-topic, but it's not like regular people have any risk of being hac{#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER
It's ironic that pollution is plummeting (Score:3, Funny)
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I sure hope it's not! Do you have any idea how expensive silver is?
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Why would you want to plate everything with a 1993 American erotic thriller film?
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Bummer! (Score:4, Funny)
This is the end of green sunsets in L.A.
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A couple'o years?
Welp (Score:4, Interesting)
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Or cities could simply stop forcing companies to provide so many parking spaces for their employees. In some places, land is very valuable, so allowing companies to repurpose some of that land for more lucrative purposes (or simply sell it off) might be incentive enough to allow more employees to telecommute, no tax break necessary.
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As for working remotely, let it be up to the company.
And they said it couldn't be done (Score:4, Insightful)
For all the whining about how we can't reduce our carbon footprint, that nothing we do will make any difference in climate change, that none of what's happening can be related to our activities, it's funny how when we stop disgorging pollutants into the air, things get better.
Re:And they said it couldn't be done (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, everyone said we can't do anything without destroying the economy.
Well, we decided we would go ahead and do that.
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Nope, not everyone [forbes.com].
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You're right, I shouldn't have said "can't do anything".
I'm a pretty big believer in the fact many little things are being done in forward progress, all the time, and we should continue to do so.
I should've said "we can't immediately completely fix climate change without destroying the economy"
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We don't actually need to destroy the economy (Score:3)
It just so happens that our economy is so fragile, our social safety net so porous and our tolerance for folks who not working getting food & shelter that we're probably going to crash the economy anyway.
We spent hundreds of years proclaiming "If you don't work you don't eat!". When we passed the point where that didn't need to be true anym
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Ignorance is bliss, right?
Economy is Imaginary numbers? Thank god people like you arent in charge.
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Funny how your signature is apropos to how dumb your comment is... "We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute eco-political-correctness."
But before this crisis even happened the US was reducing emissions while not destroying the economy: https://eidclimate.org/latest-... [eidclimate.org]
Note that means that "OMG TRUMP IS HITLER" led a country with lower emissions in 2019 with a booming economy than Obama did in 2009 where the tanking economy was supposed to give him a free pass to making the seas recede.
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2020 Climate Change Award (Score:4, Funny)
And the winner of the 2020 Climate Change Award is....
All back to normal on April 1st - 110010001000 (Score:1)
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
3+ months? Things will be back to normal on April 1st. China and SK already have a declining number of cases. Sorry kids, your dreams of Fallout won't happen. Back to ordinary life.
110010001000 - 15th March 2020
Brilliant prediction, binary man!
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https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
3+ months? Things will be back to normal on April 1st. China and SK already have a declining number of cases. Sorry kids, your dreams of Fallout won't happen. Back to ordinary life.
110010001000 - 15th March 2020
Brilliant prediction, binary man!
He's just quoting his mentor Trump.
By April it will be all over. Hang in there, only 1 week left...
Brace Yourselves (Score:2, Interesting)
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Why post the same tired old lie, one magazine article that was incorrect. You denialists really are fucking dumb as fuck, and useless cunts.
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Re: Brace Yourselves (Score:2)
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Re: Brace Yourselves (Score:2)
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And saved lives and property (Score:2)
There's also less car crashes and therefore less new cars bought. And less people killed or injured from said crashes.
Interesting how this will effect weather patterns. (Score:2)
Dying (as it were) to know the stats (Score:2)
A year or two from now, I want to see the curves for
And that's just a start. This is the Sociologist Full Employment Act of 2020.
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A side benefit for remote work (Score:2)
Commercial office space is one of the reasons rents and real estate is costly in US (and elsewhere.)
So THAT'S why they released it (Score:1)
Never trust air you can't see (Score:2)
(At least that's what I told myself growing up in Los Angeles.)
Again, showing that per capita is worthless (Score:2)
I suppose now is a good time to (Score:2)
Add more lanes for the highways and fix all the repairs needed without paying for night time access/shifts?
Now if we could only keep the road construction crews from standing so close to each other.... https://www.industrious.info/6... [industrious.info]
When it's lifted (Score:2)
Everyone do burnouts, roll coal, etc.
Everything old is new again... (Score:2)
I have been a big advocate of working remotely for years. Unfortunate that it had to be COVID-19 to force this upon us. Where I work we have been under a mandatory work from home directive until further notice for the past few weeks. Despite some dire predictions it has been business as usual from a productivity standpoint. For certain types of jobs it makes a lot of sense to work remotely. Consider some of the benefits:
1) Commute times are not only reduced they are eliminated
2) Far less traffic for those o