
Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/climate/coronavirus-usa-traffic.html
======
ciconia
Despite the loss of human life, and the economic suffering of a great chunk of
our species, a lot of good may come of the present pandemic. I believe this
crisis has the potential to bring about a fundamental change in the way we
relate to the world and to each other. It's as if humanity is at a crossroads:
everything is possible, and we need to make a choice. I read this morning
something that struck me as true: "We were in the process of losing our
humanity, but a virus one thousands of a micron has has just given it back to
us." [1]

[1] [https://www.causeur.fr/coronavirus-covid-19-guillaume-
bigot-...](https://www.causeur.fr/coronavirus-covid-19-guillaume-bigot-174274)

~~~
tjr225
A beautiful quote. I think it’s a little goofy that you’re being downvoted
just for saying something vaguely positive. Please, people- keep your wits
about you.

~~~
thulecitizen
Thank you for shining a light on something that you found beautiful. I bid you
a safe journey also, my dear friend.

------
twblalock
This situation makes me more pessimistic about solving global climate change.

The economic damage caused by "shelter in place" falls disproportionately on
the poor and the lower middle class, who work in fields where working from
home is not possible.

Emission regulations and fuel taxes also fall disproportionately on the same
people, because they can't afford newer cars which are more efficient.

When the French government raised fuel taxes in order to ameliorate climate
change, there were mass street protests. What started as a protest against
fuel taxes developed into a widespread expression of grievance against
inequality.

We can expect a lot more of that if we do what it really takes to make a big
impact on climate change.

If climate policy is not balanced against economic inequality, there is a real
risk that such anger will channel into support for populist political parties,
who would roll back climate policy when elected.

~~~
njarboe
I don't think people working in fields are being told to not go to work. Food
production is critical work and is still allowed. It is the service industry
(bars, restaurants, hotels, travel, sports, concerts, etc.) that is taking the
hit, but it also has lots of low wage jobs.

If a carbon tax was applied to whole countries and the funds collected given
back as a per person dividend instead of going into the general budget, I
think most people would support that. There are ways forward. We just have to
support ways that work with the system we have instead of using climate change
as a crisis to implement the utopian ideas of a few.

~~~
twblalock
> I don't think people working in fields are being told to not go to work.

I didn't mean literal field workers. I mean field as in "job field".

------
gdubs
I’ve been thinking a lot about the next looming crisis: Climate Change. On
Bloomberg radio a few weeks ago, an analyst / money manager was talking about
how his firm was looking at satellite imagery of pollution in China to measure
their economic recovery. More pollution == “better”. Something is clearly
unsustainable with that formula.

Like the virus, the longer we wait to take action, the more expensive it is
and the narrower our options become. It seems more and more that there’s an
illusion of public debate, while behind the scenes a decision has been made in
favor of [adaptation]. I find that deeply sad.

The world has pressed the pause button for a moment. What it looks like on the
other side of this crisis is in question. My (fools?) hope is that it makes us
reflect on the fragility of the system we’ve created, the importance of global
cooperation, democratic values, and what kind of future we want for ourselves
and our kids.

~~~
aledalgrande
I also have hope that this tragedy brings humanity forward. Not only with
climate change, but a lot of other things. More contacts between people (video
calls to friends and family far away). Doctors are increasing the use of video
calling and sending prescriptions via email already. Bill Gates' 2015 TED now
doesn't seem just a faraway prediction now, so hopefully governments will form
a "health NATO". Seeing Venice with clean water will maybe make the
administration think, "wow, this is gorgeous, why don't we find a way to keep
it like this?" Just disconnected thoughts of hope.

~~~
jdhn
Doesn't Venice have "clean water" because all the silt that was suspended in
the water due to gondola traffic has now settled on the bottom of the canals?

~~~
hoorayimhelping
clear water doesn't necessarily mean clean water.

Turbidity, which is how cloudy water is, is on a different axis from
pollution, toxicity, and mineral content of water. There are heavily stained
lakes in Florida with a lot of silt mixed up that you can't see further than a
couple feet in that would be fairly safe to drink out of.

Mono Lake
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Lake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Lake),
by contrast is very clear, but it's a soda lake and most normal aquatic life
can't live there.

~~~
jdhn
>clear water doesn't necessarily mean clean water

I agree, hence my "clean water" in quotes. However, a lot of people do think
that opaque water is inherently dirty and clear water is inherently clean,
even if the opaqueness is simply due to suspended organic particles that will
settle over time.

------
mmhsieh
most commutes are BS. a lot of work does not need to be done in an office. a
lot of office politics can be cut down when communications are proportionately
more heavily documented. typical overhead for a single seat in the metro where
I work is $50K a year. there was already a move to hoteling and telework.
tremendous efficiencies gained in this should be retained. better for the
environment, bottom lines, quality of life of workers. managers with the 20th
century face-time attitude: deal with it.

------
evo_9
After this current crisis is contained the world governments should mandate a
mandatory work-from-home 6 week period starting each new year.

This would allow for an annual 'Earth Reset' and the effect of which might
just be enough to turn things around, or hell, maybe even reverse course. It's
remarkable how quickly nature has rebounded during all this.

------
Shivetya
and auto insurance companies are probably benefiting as well

------
vinniejames
Looks like we've found the solution to global warning.

All it took was a government mandate that folks who can and should be working
from home do so.

Hopefully we all have the common sense to continue this long term, mother
earth deserves a break

~~~
erik_seaberg
I think the people working from home are outnumbered by the people who _can 't
work_ and are quickly going broke.

~~~
briefcomment
No one's disputing that.

It makes sense that if people who can work home do so, the environment will be
better than if they don't work from home. Also, many people who cannot work
from home at the moment are still driving to work (restaurant workers, grocery
store workers, other retail). This current situation isn't too far off from a
state where just those who can work from home do so, and the rest drive to
work. And anecdotally, the air where I live has gone from one of the worst in
the nation to delightful.

~~~
leetcrew
> This current situation isn't too far off from a state where just those who
> can work from home do so, and the rest drive to work.

it seems pretty very far off to me. I'm having a nice time working from home,
but all my friends that don't work at a grocery store (restaurant workers,
tutors, social workers, theater techs) are sitting at home not getting paid.

I'm not sure how to estimate what fraction of the workforce actually needs to
commute to work, but it seems like they make up a pretty significant amount of
the people that are not driving right now.

~~~
vinniejames
I would argue a strong case that tutors and social workers don't need to
commute to work. What part of their job can't be done online?

~~~
leetcrew
my tutor friend probably has a temporary problem. as soon as remote school
gets going, I'm sure she'll be able to convince her clients to pay for remote
tutoring.

but as a social worker, you can end up making house calls to some very
dysfunctional (or at least, the opposite of tech savvy people). a lot of these
people simply can't figure out how to do video calls reliably; they might not
even own a computer or have a mobile plan with enough data for video.
sometimes the social worker is helping them perform physical tasks.

------
v8engine
Can someone please tell me what the name for the technology used to create the
graphics is? The text for the place names over the image is highlightable.

I know you can handcraft these by having the text overlay over an exact X,Y on
an image but that seems overblown for just these maps than having the text
rastered into the image loaded.

So, is there some tool like an SVG creator that helps create these with the
responsiveness and everything handled?

~~~
wffurr
There's some interesting HTML comments in the source.

"ai2html" sounds like the source is Adobe Illustrator and probably refers to
this tool:
[https://github.com/newsdev/ai2html](https://github.com/newsdev/ai2html)

Not sure what "freebird" is, some internal software. I can't find much about
it with Google search.

    
    
        <!-- data processed in process/freebird/process-graphic.js -->
        <!-- asset wrapper : start -->
        <!-- ASSET : START -->
        <div class="g-asset g-graphic" style="max-width: 945px">
        <!-- Intro elements -->
        <!-- inner graphic element -->
        <!-- print .html file -->
        <!-- Generated by ai2html v0.100.0 - 2020-03-22 00:19 -->
        <!-- ai file: maps_la.ai -->
        <!-- preview: 2020-03-19-coronavirus-us-cities-shutdown -->
        <!-- scoop: coronavirus-usa-traffic -->

~~~
v8engine
Yup. ai2html seems to what I was looking for. Didn't spot that because of all
the freebird comments.

As for freebird, my search led me to this.
[https://github.com/freebirdjs/freebird](https://github.com/freebirdjs/freebird)

Seems to be the NYT has an array of pollution sensor IOT across the cities and
they are using Freebird to control them. Just my guess.

------
gumby
I remember this effect in September 2001: suburban outdoors was much quieter
with no air traffic and a much reduced road traffic.

It was around this time that I started backpacking again. I had forgotten how
much urban din there even when not in a city.

------
boulos
Slightly off-topic but the analyses here come from the nice folks at Descartes
Labs (Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud and with the Descartes Labs folks,
we’ve even been skiing together in Taos).

If you’re into GIS or large-scale imagery processing, you should hit them up
[1] _especially_ if you’d like to live in Santa Fe (where the core team is).
They also hire outside of Santa Fe, but as the core team is there, they
strongly suggest you consider it.

[1]
[https://jobs.lever.co/descarteslabs.com/55bcc68b-f7ba-448f-b...](https://jobs.lever.co/descarteslabs.com/55bcc68b-f7ba-448f-bb02-033537547b33)

~~~
starpilot
> I work on Google Cloud and with the Descartes Labs folks, we’ve even been
> skiing together in Taos

Do you want a medal?

~~~
boulos
No. I should have been more clear: they also do ski trips.

------
dzhiurgis
Now is a great timing to implement obvious decisions people were waiting for
decades:

\- Close city centers for any traffic where possible (European downtowns are
most suitable)

\- Close city centers for non-electric cars (and double subsidies for
purchasing them)

\- Drastically expand bike lanes

\- Drastically expand public transport (e-buses obvs)

\- Ban sale/smoking of tobacco

\- Drastically raise taxes on animal products (after all they are the sources
of so many pandemics)

\- Make contactless payments mandatory

\- Implement contactless sign-in (I was just asked to sign in KFC using a pent
that's been sitting there for days)

What else I am missing?

------
fyrefoxboy12
unintended good news consequence. earth is gonna have a great few months now.
maybe a year. less consumption, less traveling, less pollution. nature
rejoices

~~~
aunetx
Yeah but for how long?

~~~
mkagenius
He literally started with "how long" part

------
dhosek
I found this snapshot of traffic conditions in greater L.A. from Friday
afternoon to be rather stunning. I've never seen so much green except during
the night.

[https://www.motherjones.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/03/blog_...](https://www.motherjones.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/03/blog_405_traffic_map_2020_03_20.jpg?resize=990,638)

------
birdyrooster
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200322052837/https://www.nytim...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200322052837/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/climate/coronavirus-
usa-traffic.html)

------
jrobn
This event will be a good mine in refining and implementing models for
pollution control and reduction.

Never have we had events as large as this to observe.

------
_bxg1
Who knows, if effects from this last 18 months from now like some are saying
maybe it'll put a dent in climate change.

------
Noos
Well yeah, more or less cripple the economy by forcing large amounts of people
out of work for extended periods, as well as shutting down many businesses
would reduce those things. I doubt really anyone here would like the long term
cost of this.

------
nicoburns
Is anyone else wondering if the shutdown for COVID-19 will have a significant
impact on carbon emissions? If it does, then it could actually save far more
lives than it takes.

~~~
zaroth
A population’s physical health is very highly correlated with their economic
health. [1]

If COVID-19 has a significant impact on carbon emissions it’s because it
caused significant economic depression.

A significant economic depression dramatically increases poverty levels, and
increasing poverty would cost significantly more lives even than will be lost
to COVID itself. [2]

The life expectancy gap between the poorest and wealthiest Americans is about
15 _years_. [3]

[1] - [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-vs-life-
expectanc...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-vs-life-
expectancy?time=1981..2014)

[2] -
[https://twitter.com/ballouxfrancois/status/12388371731111403...](https://twitter.com/ballouxfrancois/status/1238837173111140352?s=21)

[3] - [http://news.mit.edu/2016/study-rich-poor-huge-mortality-
gap-...](http://news.mit.edu/2016/study-rich-poor-huge-mortality-gap-us-0411)

~~~
thatcat
Some of the effects of poverty are due to long working hours and stress from
long commutes. In the US, many people can never take time off work, so there
should be some health benefits from a brief economic break for an extremely
overworked population.

~~~
zaroth
I have a hard time believing that this particular time off of work is going to
lead to _reduced_ stress, don’t you?

The stress isn’t typically so much caused by working, it’s caused by being in
financial distress. I’ve had a few years with virtually no income. I’ve had to
work 80 hours a week to provide for my family. I’m not saying my personal
experience is particularly valid or applicable to the general population, but
instinctively the times of my greatest stress and anxiety haven’t been the
times I’ve worked hardest if that also meant I had enough income to buy
groceries and pay rent.

It’s the times when no matter how hard you work you still fear for your
financial security and worry where the next month’s rent payment is coming
from... I’m generally “immune” to even extraordinary levels of at-work stress,
but financial stress by far has been the worst anxiety (bordering on panic)
I’ve ever felt.

~~~
thatcat
You're right in that the psychological stress from uncertainty can be much
more overwhelming than physiological stress from burnout. I doubt you're
"immune" to burnout though.

~~~
zaroth
Sorry, the quotes around immune were meant to relay that I didn’t mean it
literally and indeed recognizing that it’s a common (and unhealthy)
misconception people can have about themselves.

Those two bytes of ASCII didn’t fully communicate all of that? </s>

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/8zX7h](https://archive.md/8zX7h)

------
karmakaze
OT: Felt bad having to click 'Collapse' on the banner below this story page.

------
naasking
This pandemic is now a grand experiment on so many levels, social, political,
medical, economic, environmental, and more. These events will be studied for
decades to come, and it will shape policy for longer still.

On the bright side, it will provide irrefutable evidence of anthropogenic
climate change, and proof that drastic changes can produce immediate and
drastic ecological improvements, and also the social and economic importance
of vaccination. Hopefully science will be taken more seriously by the business
minded that have been primarily driving policy.

Then again, we didn't learn much from the last crisis, so maybe I shouldn't
get my hopes up that we can make a lot of positive global changes from this
disaster.

------
starpilot
We can live in villages! Start over!

------
xyst
Now we need to start fining companies (per worker) that unnecessarily require
people to commute to work.

~~~
leetcrew
businesses already face significant incentives to let people WFH when
possible. they just need to be convinced it won't be a severe hit to
productivity. after the current crisis runs its course, I bet we'll see a lot
of companies realize they are wasting a lot of money on their office lease.

------
ipodopt
My understanding is that pollution has a short term (~weeks) cooling effect
due to global dimming, and a long term (~decades) warming effect due to the
greenhouse effect.

So this may cause a short term spike in global temperatures over the next few
months. If this goes on long enough it could paradoxically accelerate climate
change.

Maybe we need a well place and timed nuke on the moon to compensate.

EDIT: On the other hand increased sunlight may boost photosynthesis. All in
all should be intresting to see the effect. Because it may show that we need
to be more careful about mitigating certain types to pollutants (CO2) first
and leaving others for later.

------
deevolution
So far, the COVID-19 pandemic is showing us that People, rather than
Consumption, matter most.

We need consumption to support people, yes, but Economic expansion and
increasing consumption can't go on infinitely.

Most people shouldn't be able to afford a car - they should be taking public
transit - but they can obtain one because they take out loans.

The american fracking industry shouldn't exist, but it can because it has
access to cheap, infinite lines of credit.

Our health suffers for it.

So many people and businesses are able to live beyond their means because of
access to credit. If we eliminate the ability to create credit, then
consumption would drop to a sustainable level and pollution would also drop
and we would see an end to wasteful businesses, products, processes, and ways
of life.

~~~
lol768
> So many people and businesses are able to live beyond their means because of
> access to credit. If we eliminate the ability to create credit, then
> consumption would drop to a sustainable level and pollution would also drop
> and we would see an end to wasteful businesses, products, processes, and
> ways of life.

What about housing? A mortgage is going to be the only way for a lot of people
to ever afford their own home.

~~~
losteric
Well, to question your premise - Why is universal home ownership desirable or
necessary?

~~~
nradov
Because I want to be able to install shelves in the garage or put a new oven
in the kitchen without having to negotiate with a landlord.

~~~
losteric
How many people does your situation apply to? Personally, I prefer having a
landlord take care of appliances over the freedom to make my own changes.

~~~
nradov
Every long-term homeowner I know has done at least that much. Many have done
larger home improvement and remodeling projects.

~~~
losteric
Yes, I'd assume home owners modify their house... but that doesn't really
answer the question.

~~~
nradov
The US home ownership rate is 64%. So to answer your original question, that
situation applies to nearly 64% of people.

