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Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

nytimes.com

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Re: Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

#101

Post by zaroth »

thatcat wrote: post #82
zaroth wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poores…

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.

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.

Re: Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

#102

Post by starpilot »

boulos wrote: post #95

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…

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

Do you want a medal?

Re: Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

#103

Post by wool_gather »

vinniejames wrote: post #47

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

This is not a slam dunk by any means. Plenty of the working from home that's happening right now is not sustainable -- it's not like everyone has an extra room (or two!) in their house that they can just switch over to being an office for 8 hours a day.

This also distributes heating/cooling/electrical usage in a way that I would imagine is less efficient overall.

Re: Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

#104

Post by adrianN »

leetcrew wrote: post #83
adrianN wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic infrastructure can be changed. It takes a couple of decades, but it has happened in other cities before.

I would really like for this to happen, but I'm skeptical this is really possible in the US, at least outside the NE corridor and a couple other dense regions. are there any examples of this transformation occurring in a place as sprawled out as a typical american city+suburbs? I can believe the poor state of public transit in the older east coast cities is largely a failure of policy, but as you go further west, you…

Density is a function of taxes, zoning, jobs, commute costs and probably much more. It can be changed given enough time.

Re: Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

#105

Post by wool_gather »

thatcat wrote: post #82
zaroth wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poores…

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.

> health benefits from a brief economic break for an extremely overworked population

There might be if they could believe they were going back to work as usual -- meaning usual level of earnings -- any time soon. That's not at all clear. It's wishful thinking that this is a relaxing vacation for hourly service industry workers.

Re: Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

#107

Post by coryrc »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #34
Sileni wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. A car isn't a "want" for most people outside of major US cities. It's a need. Public transport has never been effective in most of the US. Hell, I'd have to cross an interstate on foot in order to reach work. How many weeks do you estimate it'd take me to get killed? Should I be…

> A car isn't a "want" for most people outside of major US cities. It's a need. It doesn't have to stay this way. Smaller cities and towns can invest in public transportation. Activities which must be in person could be decentralized to more local sites.

Seattle/King County metro diesel buses gets 50 passenger-miles per gallon of diesel. Better than average, but not enough for preventing climate change. They're also still running nearly all buses empty these past weeks, so that's 0 mpg.

Re: Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

#108

Post by bosswipe »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #35
johnchristopher wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, like we did for the financial crisis, the climate crisis, etc. In a nutshell ? Either you approach this with a class warfare mindset or the usual suspects are going to come out on top again.

Genuine question: what’s wrong with class warfare if certain classes are causing an overwhelming amount of the problem? Typically, you go to war against whatever is putting your life in peril.

Do you mean the bottom or the top class?

Re: Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

#109

Post by boulos »

starpilot wrote: post #102
boulos wrote: post #95

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…

> I work on Google Cloud and with the Descartes Labs folks, we’ve even been skiing together in Taos Do you want a medal?

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

Re: Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

#110

Post by Noos »

briefcomment wrote: post #85
leetcrew wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I was comparing the current situation with the state where everyone is forced to stay at home. Right now, everyone is not forced to stay at home. If you're saying that the current situation is closer to everyone staying at home than to business as usual, you're probably right. However, where I live, a majority of the restaurants are open (just doing drive through). Tutoring is possibly something that can be done onli…

Pretty much half the retail that doesn't sell food is closed where I live. The local mall is entirely closed, and many businesses that are open are reducing hours or doing "curbside service" meaning a lot of the staff is probably furloughed. My own business is either shut down for 10 more days, or 32 days at least, depending on whether we're under nonessential services.

This is not sustainable in the least man. Eventually all you guys working from home are going to feel it too, because a lot of the businesses you sell your software to are not earning revenue to pay you or to hire consultants.

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