Looking up and thinking of you all back home. Here's what Earth looks like from my point of view on the surface of Mars.
Even though we're apart, we can still be together, online. Please join me in observing #EarthDayAtHome with these @NASA activities: https://t.co/5Sk4T2tpaZ pic.twitter.com/Zj7XTezLZt
— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) April 22, 2020
Seems planet Earth is pretty happy with the Coronavirus lockdown.
The mental image many people have of Los Angeles is one obscured by smog. But with stay-at-home orders to stem coronavirus, LA saw some of the cleanest air of any major city in the world this week, according to a Swiss air quality technology company. https://t.co/49yRvYNFTZ
— CNN (@CNN) April 19, 2020
With cars now sequestered in garages, air quality around the world has gone through the roof. In March, researchers at Columbia University calculated that carbon monoxide emissions in New York City, mostly coming from vehicles, fell by 50 percent. https://t.co/aZofiYEed2
— WIRED (@WIRED) April 22, 2020
…on the mend here…how’s everyone else?
Open thread
Baud
Now that’s what I call social isolation.
Paul T
Yes, LA looked a little clearer than normal after a week of rain and a strong north wind behind it. Please take those “before and after” photos of Los Angeles with a massive grain of salt. It should be measured by the AQMD numbers.
No, we do not have “the cleanest air of any city in the world” because of the shutdown.
Roger Moore
Los Angeles may have notoriously bad air quality, but it’s gotten a lot better over time. All the stuff we’ve done to improve air quality- strict controls on automotive exhaust, controls on industry, reformulating many common products to make them less polluting, etc.- have really done their job. I sometimes think the success of pollution controls here have done as much to undermine conservative ideology as anything; they’re proof that government programs really can solve difficult problems if we give them a chance. It still amazes me when a Chinese coworker lists air quality as a reason to stay here rather than go back to China, but we really have improved, even when the city isn’t shut down.
Litlebritdifrnt
I went grocery shopping yesterday and one thing struck me, I had a few items for the food bank boxes and couldn’t fit them in because the boxes were overflowing with donations so I just left them on the floor by the side. Even the Animal Charity Wolfwood box was overflowing with donations. Brits have obviously stepped up and are giving at an incredible rate. Made my heart sing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Obligatory : )
Kent
Electric cars are the obvious answer. Or at least zero-emissions cars which would include hydrogen-based fuels. But electric is the obvious answer as it is the one with the infrastructure getting built out. I drive a Prius now, but the next car will be 100% electric.
Right now with gas prices in the toilet, states should be looking to double, triple, or quadruple their gas taxes. Or hell, raise them up to $1/gallon or more. Not just for the environment, but also to help patch some of the budgetary holes this crisis is creating.
It is shameful that when the science around climate change became 100% irrefutable (well, it’s always been irrefutable) this country doubled down on monster SUVs and suburban sprawl.
Jay
Who had “ War with Iran to distract from botching a Pandemic Response” on their Dolt 45 Bingo Card?
Faithful Lurker
@Litlebritdifrnt: I live in a small community in far NW Washington state. I’ve been a volunteer for our local food bank for the past 10 years and we’ve never had the contributions that we’re getting now. We’ve had many people walk in, hand our manager a check for between $500 up to $2000 and walk out again without a word. So we’re able to buy fresh produce (at wholesale prices) and other things our people need.
Amazing.
Poe Larity
@Jay: Hey, flying gunboats is a major escalation on their part.
Sure Lurkalot
TaMara: Very happy to hear that you are still mending, wishing you continued improvement to good health.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
Tell me about it. I like driving sedans and it pisses me off to no end when I can’t see over the ugly CUV, SUV or truck in front of me in traffic. I really don’t understand what people see in them.
Well, that’s not true. I’ve heard people feel safer in them (never mind that a crash at 80 mph on the freeway will probably kill you no matter what you’re driving) and find them easier to get into.
Still, most “CUVs” and SUVs are ugly imho and they along with trucks contribute more to climate change than smaller vehicles, such as the Ford Focus.
It seems like the market for sporty, small, economical cars has collapsed. And worst of all, this isn’t just an American phenomenon anymore
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Gas taxes are unbelievably regressive. What do you do about people who need a car to get to work and can’t afford a hybrid, let alone an all electric?
Kent
What the US should be doing and wont. Even in eco-friendly cities like Portland and Seattle we will likely do nothing like this
Here in the Portland metro area the Oregon DOT is doubling down on freeway expansion in the midst of the pandemic. Sigh.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Glad to hear you’re feeling better TaMara!
MoCA Ace
@Baud: Give him time… the orange shitstain will get the virus to Mars before this is done!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
Why do you think that is?
Aleta
Happy Earth Day Tamara. Happy Earth Day everyone.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
My first LA trip was last century, Christmas break in the late ’70s. First time I ever saw yellow skies. Like, yellow-yellow. Stayed in Pasadena and for three days did not know the San Gabriels existed, then the wind shifted and BANG, they were right there. How had I never seen this looming mountain range?
Today, the improvements since the 20th century are huge but there are still intractable issues with NOX, ozone, particulates, etc. that cannot be resolved without getting away from internal combustion transportation (and other emitters including construction, gardening tools, generators, etc.). Luckily, there are no coal plants in the state to shut down. Plenty of natural gas powerplants and maybe some oil-fired plants–don’t know about that last one.
Kent
People need to fucking change. Rural and suburban America is filled with white working class people driving 10 mpg monster trucks and who live 15 miles out in the country in part to get away from non-white urban dwellers. It is killing the planet. These are my people. I am related to a bunch of them. I’m not sure what they worship more, their guns or their $70,000 F250 trucks that are too big to fit into most urban parking spaces.
Subsidies and buy-backs and simply the elimination of existing subsidies for fossil fuels and highway construction to suburban sprawl will go a long way.
Yes the transition will be hard for some people. Transitions always are. We can build in adequate safety nets for those who want to change.
Paul T
@Roger Moore: Completely agree about the improvement in LA air (at least the visibility) since the early 80’s. It is a great achievement that is now largely taken for granted.
I point out the 70-80’s cop/detective stories that are in re-runs. Have a look at the “air” in the backgrounds of the cityscapes. Now, that is SMOG!
trollhattan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Continuously growing suburbs. Portland metro has grown by hundreds of thousands, and the city itself cannot accommodate it alone.
To their credit they probably have the best integrated commuter rail system in the west.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Paul T: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about the timing of the photo, rain really helps with the air quality in the basin. That said, the air quality would be a photographer’s dream. I was trying to figure out where that shot was taken…it’s from the bridge over the southbound 110 as it goes though Elysian Park. I’ve shot traffic trails from there.
trollhattan
@Kent:
Yup. This briefly cheap gas will encourage even more SUV and pick-m-up sales at a time when 50mpg cars are a consumer reality. Fuck that noise.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: This is really true, a better comparison would be before the shutdown and now.
CaseyL
@Kent: One problem with turning more streets into pedestrian/cycle lanes is that sometimes people need their private cars.
I take the bus to work 99.9% of the time. The exceptions were during the two pre-lockdown weeks, when I was going into the office once or twice a week. I did NOT want to take the bus, for obvious reasons; and I am in no kind of shape to bicycle any distance (way too many hills).
Weekends are another matter. I can’t use public transit unless i want to spend practically the whole day waiting for buses. I run errands, I go shopping, I visit people (this is pre-COVID, obv.): I go to many places throughout a large city. Taking the bus for all that would turn a 2-3 hour expedition into a 5-6 hour expedition (not to mention having to carry 6 bags of groceries for however many blocks).
When buses reliably run every 10 minutes, maybe then I’ll switch over for anything but grocery runs.
And I’d love to get an all-electric car. When I can afford one. And when I can reliably get it recharged.
ETA: My neighborhood will get a lightrail station next year. I will use the hell out of lightrail when it comes to my neighborhood – but I’m not sure yet how much that will replace using the bus and how much it will replace using my car.
MoCA Ace
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed. What we could do is raise the CAFE standards to, over time, push the whole fleet towards electric. Too bad we have never had a president who would do this //.
Nicole
My 9-year-old and I kidded that spending Earth Day indoors is a fine way to give the Earth a gift today.
I watched Cuomo’s daily brief today and a (I assume) right-wing journalist asked about the open-back-up protests, and even used “the cure is worse than the disease” and he smacked her down eight ways from Sunday. I actually cried afterwards, it was so well done. It was such a relief to hear a politician flat out say that the “disease” is death, and no “cure” is worse than death- not economic hardship, not being depressed because you’re stuck at home, nothing. And to hear him say it’s not just one’s own death; it’s the death of other people and that we, each of us, have a responsibility to them. AND, then to bring up the death toll in NYS every day and how he looks at those losses as though those people were his own family members. Better than a Sunday sermon, and that he finally (politely) argued her into a stumped silence was icing on the cake.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I went to the first Earth Day in Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor. We sat way up in the balcony and it was so warm I was afraid I’d pass out.
In other news, you can now pre-order THE WYSMAN ppb on Indiebound, Amazon, and B&N for a discounted $12.99. Release date is June 27. Pre-orders made it show up more highly ranked on release day, which I hope means more people see it then. The full blurb is at each site.
indycat32
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I bought a Honda HRV a couple of years ago after years of buying Civics. I bought it because I’m old and it’s a lot easier to get in and out of a vehicle that’s higher off the ground. I get the same gas mileage I got with my Civic.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: The problem with raising gas taxes is they’re pretty regressive and a lot of folk of modest means can’t live close to where they work and there are often no other alternatives for the commute.
Kent
Many interconnected factors. Off the top of my head:
Racism: This has driven much suburban sprawl and car-centric culture in the US since WW2. Much of the suburbanization of America was driven by white-flight.
Lack of planning: Most American subdivisions get thrown up with no planning at all. Where I live in Camas WA is an example. Developers just buy a farm field and put in 50 houses on cul-de-sacs. There is no attempt to integrate it into any larger and logical street grid that would support transit or alternative transportation. Then when it is done the city just takes over whatever they build.
Space: Most American cities, especially in the sun belt and middle of the country have too much space which encourages sprawl. In contrast to most Euro cities.
Auto/Petroleum/Highway lobbies have national and state legislatures in their grip.
Inertia: Building more freeways has been the solution for 60 years. It’s hard to turn the ship mid-course.
Politics: Americans just love their cars and anything to dial that back invites huge backlash. There is a well documented phenomenon called “bikelash” in the US where local people become riled up and protest even simple bike and pedestrian improvements. A lot of it is astroturf bullshit like the recent covid protests. But even progressive cities fall to it. The Dem mayor of Seattle caved to a bunch of right wing Nimbys and pulled the plug on a modest bike-lane expansion on 35th Ave in NE Seattle near where I used to live. Because a few local businesses rioted about the loss of on-street parking. Infuriating.
Calouste
@trollhattan: The population density of Portland is about 1/10th of the population density of Paris. Americans don’t want to live that close together, but it can be done.
RobertDSC-Work
It somehow bothers me that the Curiosity rover is personalized, both from a literal standpoint and a metaphorical one. It’s a robot. It has no soul or spirit. It is not a being in any way.
And then it’s out there on Mars all alone and we can’t help it if it gets damaged or stops working and I hate that feeling.
raven
I’m doing instacart right now and the person is texting me when they are out and asking if I want a substitution. I’ve read all kinds of bad reviews but this is my second time from Aldi and, unless they fuck it up , it’s very good and a nice tip will be in order. I feel a little dumb because I’ve made a couple of quick runs during old people hours but this seems ok.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
One of the biggest problems in LA today is from the port complex. The ships have no pollution controls, and we aren’t legally allowed to require them. We’ve been able to get the ships to stop idling their engines while in port by providing free electrical hookups, but they still pollute a lot while moving in and out of port. I think the best prospect for improving things is to require the ships to shut down when they’re further away from port and have them pulled in by clean tugs, but it’s a tough solution. Of course the massive crash in international shipping has had a lot to do with improving air quality since the pandemic.
Kent
I’d propose government programs to buy-back gas guzzlers and subsidize their exchange for zero-emission electric cars on favorable terms. Stuff like that. Exchange your beater F150 for say a leased Nissan Leaf on very favorable lease terms. We can get creative.
But of course there are also larger issues at play. In CA you have a massive affordable housing crisis that needs solving and that is leading to those monster commutes.
It is all connected.
frosty
@Roger Moore: Very true. I lived in SoCal in the 70s. It has been nothing short of amazing that I could see Mt Baldy when I returned periodically in the last 20 years.
Ruckus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It’s called last grasp. People like to hang on to what they know. The unknown is rather scary for a lot of people. And they buy the most familiar objects they can find. Plus, SUVs and pickumups are what car dealers and mfg make the most profit on so they sell the hardest.
raven
@Roger Moore: Long Beach/Pedro?
Baud
@RobertDSC-Work:
Neither are bots, but y’all still treat me like people.
Ella in New Mexico
@Kent:
No, not right now, especially since those being forced to drive are essential workers who can’t telecommute.
The obvious thing happening in this country that no one is talking about, however: apparently, a large number of us contributing to climate change (because our employers force us to) can do some or all of our work without driving into a designated workplace.
We apparently don’t need millions of cars in 2mph bumper to bumper traffic pumping greenhouse gas into the air between 6:45 and 0:830 every single day of the week.
We apparently could work from home, at least part of the time, in approximately 35-70% of non-direct service jobs.
We apparently could reduce all traffic in major urban areas by huge numbers simply by combining flexible hours with telecommuting.
We could restructure our entire way of working in this country to reduce its impact on the environment, as well as increase overall human mental, physical and emotional well being.
No wonder we’ve got the panic stricken Mercers and DeVos’s and Kochs shoveling money into these Astro-Turf “get back to work” protests like engineers shoving coal into old fashioned steam train engines:
The nations employers don’t evaluate employees based on what they actually do for them. They don’t believe that if theres no boss to crack the whip, even in these white collar environments like engineering and tech, we’ll get anything done. So they feel they have to control our bodies for 8+ hours a day just in case we are having too much, well, happiness on the job.
They don’t want us to realize any of this, like it too much, and start demanding it from society.
frosty
@Kent: Actually we’ll need an alternative funding source for transportation as we move to more electric vehicles. Eventually.
Kent
Actually we don’t know that at all.
If you want to talk about Portland then let’s talk Portland. Since I live here. Something like 90% of the city is zoned to single family homes. It is actually illegal to build anything resembling Paris anywhere in Portland outside of the central core. And it is mostly for historic racist reasons. Single family zoning was how Portland kept the city white. https://beta.portland.gov/bps/history-racist-planning-portland
More recently the NIMBY politics are intense.
But based on how popular urban dense neighborhoods are in Portland I would suggest your premise is wrong. People would love to live in Parisian or Barcelona type neighborhoods and can’t because much of the city is still wedded to single family housing. Much of it pretty damn crappy.
cope
It’s good to hear you are on the mend, TaMara. I’m sure it helps to be able to go out on that back deck, take in the view and breath in that mountain air.
We moved from Colorado to Florida over 30 years ago. As my wife and kids were getting on the plane (I had to drive the rental truck while towing the family truckster), she told the kids to take a good, deep breath because they weren’t going to be able to enjoy that experience in Florida
Edited to add: Oh yeah, and about Earth Day, I just scanned and emailed a picture of two of my college compatriots walking through the small rural town where our college was. We were protesting air pollution which, come to think of it, was unlikely a problem in that town at the time. My friend Mark was wearing a scuba tank and carrying a sign. Good times…
trollhattan
@Calouste:
We have this argument about “fixing” SF’s unaffordable housing prices here every few months. SF is already the US’s second-most densely populated major city while the surrounding MSA is 1/10 the density. Cramming in a bunch of highrise housing can increase SF’s density further, but will do nothing to reduce the housing cost. There’s no compelling reason until the surrounding areas increase their density.
By contrast, New York has outlying communities even more dense than the city itself, a situation that exists nowhere else in the US.
I’d turn our urban planning over to the Dutch, myself. They know how to make every square inch count, and the bicycle is king despite the crappy climate. I’m sure Houston would get on board.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: One of the good things the new Democratic majority accomplished in the recent General Assembly session was to raise gas taxes, not so much an environmental measure as an infrastructure funding measure. But there won’t be as much gas sold in 10 years; GM has twenty electric vehicles planned for 2024, and their old Lordstown plant will be producing electric pickups and delivery vans under new ownership. UPS, FedEx, and Amazon have a couple hundred thousand electric delivery vans on order, and hybrids too. So we will see a shift to other revenue sources this decade. I hope the Virginia gas tax increase doesn’t hurt working class people too much. But Virginia’s gas tax has been too low for a couple of decades. I sometimes drive to Atlanta, and while North Carolina has higher gas taxes it has better roads. I think they had a strategy of attracting manufacturing industry with good infrastructure, and it seems to have worked at least in the piedmont. where I-85 runs. And the difference in North Carolina gas prices is less than the tax; the wholesalers and retailers eat some of it.
Kent
I don’t know what your neighborhood is like. But here in my suburb, people are using the NextDoor app to connect elderly and immuno-compromised types with local HS kids who are volunteering to do grocery runs and errands for them. There are plenty of bored HS kids who are happy to do that sort of thing for free. But then this is an affluent suburban community.
FelonyGovt
@Roger Moore: Agreed. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1981 the sky was orange. Air quality regulations have made a huge improvement in our air quality, another reason why Trump’s attempts to undermine those regulations makes me furious.
Glad you’re doing better, TaMara.
Ruckus
@Kent:
As it seems that lung/breathing issues make COVID far worse and people develop pneumonia before they know it, which makes getting over the virus much more difficult. I wonder if pollution makes COVID much worse?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Fine, if I get a Leaf, where do I plug it in?
ziggy
I feel the push to close off parks and discourage outdoor activities is really misguided. Cliff Mass makes the argument for me here:
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-outside-air-is-safe-and-park.html
IMHO indoor air is much more unhealthy. We should all be getting out and enjoying this lovely weather, and the time that we have to savor it.
frosty
@Kent: One other factor for suburbanization in the 40s and 50s: After seeing how easy it was for Britain and the US to burn German and Japanese cities to rubble, people wanted to get away.
trollhattan
@Ella in New Mexico:
I’m hopeful that our enforced remote work beta test will demonstrate to some significant slice of business and government that 1. it can indeed work and 2. it has tangible benefits to the employer as well as the employed. There will be some lasting changes from this crisis and some of them will be positive.
I, for one, would happily relinquish my workspace, furniture, etc. and show up at a much smaller office for the occasional meeting, etc. Think of the cost savings to the employer. The reflexive management desire for TOTAL CONTROL can be offset, at least in part, by significantly reduced operations costs. Will it be enough?
catclub
How come no stars in the picture of the sky seen from Mars?
trollhattan
@frosty:
It’s not escaping notice that highest urban and living space density=the highest COVID-19 infection and death numbers.
zhena gogolia
I’m glad you’re continuing to recover.
Kent
Not saying it is an instant solution for everyone. But for many it is. If you are in an urban neighborhood with only on-street parking then that is obviously a problem. The solution would be dedicated lots with charging stations but that is infrastructure that needs building out. And if everyone had charging available at their workplace then they’d never need to charge at home. But we will never get there if we don’t start. We are going in the opposite direction with our current laws and incentives.
Change is hard. And arguments like yours are why the planet will likely burn.
Roger Moore
@raven:
Yes. Los Angles and Long Beach are the two busiest container ports in North America, and it’s not particularly close.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Kent: Some people want to. I think they’re nuts to want to live all crammed together like chickens at a factory poultry farm.
trollhattan
@Geminid:
The acceptance of e-vehicles should see a significant uptick when charging infrastructure hits some threshold we don’t yet know. California will likely be first to achieve that and I suppose the Northeast will be close behind.
Kent
@Ruckus:
Yes, this is exceedingly well documented. Air pollution most definitely increases the covid death toll. We are currently wringing our hands about a possible death toll off 100,000+ for covid-19 when an estimated 200,000 people die of air-pollution related diseases each year in the US. https://www.newsweek.com/200000-americans-die-every-year-air-pollution-that-meets-epa-standard-1473187
?BillinGlendaleCA
@ziggy: The initial social distancing orders here in LA left the parks and trails open, folk crowded them, so they had to be shut down. I’d like to take more pics like today’s OTR and pics of the city with the clearer views due to better air quality, but I can’t.
Brachiator
Just recently woke up today a very lazy Southern California morning, and heard this news story about oil tankers on the radio. Searched for some follow-up.
Crazily enough, there are predictions that oil prices will spike up in the post pandemic world. Low prices now might result in fewer producers in the future, with many driven out of business.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@frosty: At least in LA the desire to get away from dense city life has been part of our history since the 1880’s.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@catclub: Not enough dynamic range in the camera, stars are really dim.
Miss Bianca
@Kent: Uhhh…
Sticks-dweller here. I used to own a Honda Civic hybrid which I adored, but didn’t survive a black-ice crash back in 2012. Now I drive a 1996 five-speed manual Honda Passport that I bought for $1100. And my particular friend does, in fact, own an F-250 (also manual) (not a $70,000 model, I will add – bought for $14,000 used) which is rather handy for hauling horse trailers (and other types) up here in the mountains. Which electric vehicles are notably bad at, btw.
No, we’re not going to be switching over any time soon.
And watch who you’re stereotyping there, bud.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Home is my workspace, unless I’m On The Road.
ETA: Making change workable is hard.
Ella in New Mexico
@trollhattan: Yes!! Everything you said.
It’s so hard to get business to understand that their archaic ways not only hurt employees, or society–but hurt THEM, too.
Hoping all the positive changes we’re seeing in this damn pandemic get adopted-simply because they work for everybody.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Physical distancing – TO THE EXTREME!
mali muso
@raven: I’ve had great success in using Aldi/Instacart since the beginning of this thing. Have an open window now adding things to my list as I think of them, in fact. :)
Roger Moore
@frosty:
This. Raising gas taxes is a nice idea in the short term because it pushes people to buy more fuel efficient cars, but it’s not a sustainable long-term source of funding. We need some combination of tolls, congestion charges, higher registration fees, per-mile charges, and non-car sources of revenue (e.g. property or income taxes) to make up for declining gas tax revenue.
Emma from FL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Done! And thank you. I have retreated to books (in many formats) for my self-isolation. Good fantasy is hard to beat.
frosty
@?BillinGlendaleCA: And made possible by the Pacific Electric’s Big Red Car.
trollhattan
@Kent:
Gig Car in our metro area and the Bay Area offers one model that could help. Gen Z is not married to car ownership and rather than solely relying on taxi-ish Lyft and Uber, offers rental on demand that’s a pretty compelling option for when those services aren’t so great (e.g., shopping, going out of town, etc). That the fleet is electric is neat for two reasons: not contributing to local pollution and getting drivers into an electric for the first time. The little Chevy Bolt is a blast to drive. Who knew?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@frosty: The Red Car was more of a reaction to folk moving further from the city center, Huntington saw a market there.
ETA: The Red Car did probably encourage folk to move further out.
Brachiator
@Kent:
According to news stories I’ve seen, there are two studies that suggest links. There are no studies proving a direct link.
Nicole
@ziggy: Oh, we’re getting outside a lot (I ran 5 and a half miles yesterday evening. I’m getting good at doing it entirely in a face mask, too), but as I recall many an Earth Day celebration one had to drive to get to, I can’t help but think this, as hard as it is on us humans, is a fine one for the planet.
Jeffro
Anyone ever read that book “The World Without Us”, about what would happen to the Earth if the humans just disappeared?
Air cleans up in a hurry; animals wander through our cities.
It’s…just weird to think about.
WaterGirl
@Jay: What is… All of Us?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@frosty: Another factor is that a lot of the people moving into the suburbs had grown up on farms. A lot of that generation of farmers rented their land from the local land owner; I know my parents had a horror of renting that was partly leftover from that experience and partly the experience of being poor renters in Detroit in the mid-1950s.
trollhattan
1985 was a LONG time ago. If you’ve been waiting for another X album since then, your wait ends today. You’ll find from the first measure they still have The Sound.
?BillinGlendaleCA
One of the other things I did to celebrate Spring here in the southland is reposition my outdoor camera to a higher position on the wall(it was getting blocked by a palm tree). I now have a partial view of the eastern Santa Monicas(Griffith Park). Clear as a bell.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: People who can afford a $70,000 truck aren’t the people I was talking about.
ziggy
@Jeffro: Yes! just finished that book, loved it. The whole concept is fascinating to me.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Except that is almost all being driven by New York. The second densest metropolis in the US is San Francisco, and they’re doing pretty well. The third densest is LA, and we aren’t doing as well as SF, but we’re doing OK. Meanwhile, places like New Orleans and Detroit have been hit very hard. I also think it will be wise to wait until the pandemic is under control before drawing strong conclusions about the relationship between density and death rate. Some of the less dense places have been spared so far because it took a long time for the disease to get there, but there’s reason to worry that it will be devastating in those places once it arrives.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Emma from FL: I hope you enjoy it, Emma. I’m reading a lot too. I’m about to start Emily St. John Mandel’s THE GLASS HOTEL. I loved her STATION ELEVEN, though it might not be the right reading for now since the premise is that a pandemic wipes out huge swaths of the population.
ziggy
@Roger Moore: I think one of the reasons that the Seattle area is doing relatively well, for being infected so early, is that we have a very poor public transportation system.
Kent
I’m not sure what evidence would be required to PROVE such a thing. There are obviously a LOT of different comorbities that go along with covid-19. But air pollution, and ESPECIALLY the respiratory diseases that accompany it are most certainly statistically linked to higher covid-19 mortality rates.
If you have chronic bronchitis or emphysema due to air pollution are you more or less likely to die of covid-19?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I absolutely love Station Eleven.
Kent
@trollhattan:
@frosty:
China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan all have higher levels of density than even NYC. So do many German cities.
Arguably the most dense parts of the modern world are doing orders of magnitude better than the US.
cope
TaMara, sorry for my memory lapse. For some reason, I was thinking the picture Miss Bianca posted in the Alain post was made by you. Whatever the view from your back yard (ducks included), I hope it sustains you as you recover.
My wife’s best friend is also mending from the virus and has an excellent prognosis. I hope you do as well.
ziggy
@?BillinGlendaleCA: as Cliff points out, why should a few miscreants be able to ruin it for the rest of us? Virus droplets dissipate and degrade much more quickly outdoors, so even a fairly normal type of gathering/distancing is much less dangerous than one indoors.
raven
@Roger Moore: I love that wild-ass San Pedro Fish Market!
Kent
Seattle is #15 in transit use among US cities, not far below Chicago or Philly, and ahead of Detroit and New Orleans and most of hard-hit suburban New Jersey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_high_transit_ridership
Ksmiami
@RobertDSC-Work: just wait for our sentient robot astronauts- that’s next…
Tamara- Hope you continue to feel better
Brachiator
@Kent:
RE: According to news stories I’ve seen, there are two studies that suggest links. There are no studies proving a direct link.
This is why we have science.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
Mandel had me at strolling troupe of Shakespearean actors
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Jeffro: Seeing the sky clearing and the animals wandering the streets is giving me more hope than I have had for a while.
We have this “only ultra-dense housing can save us” conversation every so often, and I always end up a bit suicidal afterward. In part, that’s because I know I will be actively suicidal if I have to go back to living like that.
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yep. Huntington was a property developer as well as a railroad baron, and he built the Pacific Electric Railway as a way of getting people to buy in his real estate developments. The Red Cars were marginally profitable on an operating basis, but they never would have been built or stayed in business without cross subsidies from the real estate development side of the business. Once the real estate was developed, they were probably doomed in the long term without some other source of subsidy.
natem
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I grew up near a right-of-way in Long Beach, and remember still seeing tracks whenever I walked around there, even though the Red Cars had stopped rolling through for well over a decade. People talked about the Red Cars in mythical terms. That is to say, they missed them and were sad to see them go.
I remember when the Blue Line first opened, how excited my parents and neighbors were.
trollhattan
@Kent:
New York City trails four nations for the highest death toll. For those who think Average Joe is going to dig for nuance in those numbers I have on offer, a historic bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@ziggy: You haven’t see the video, these places were really crowded. The Mayor made the right call.
Kent
@Brachiator: There is a very high correlation or statistical link between air pollution and covid-19 death rates. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/20/air-pollution-may-be-key-contributor-to-covid-19-deaths-study
Obviously this crisis is much too new for us to have done detailed epidemiological studies to tease out all of the aggravating factors. That sort of thing takes years.
trollhattan
@Kent:
NY=26,403/sq mi
Munich=12,090/sq mi, Berlin=10,230 and all others are well under 10k.
You knew somebody would check, right? :-)
Origuy
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Reminds me of the time I was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and attended a strolling production of Macbeth. That is, the audience strolled along with the players. It started out with the Three Weird Sisters in the cemetery of Greyfriers Kirk, then we moved along the streets of Edinburgh stopping for a scene here and there.
orchid moon
So glad to hear that you are feeling better! Will keep sending you healing thoughts for a bit longer. But, but, but, man isn’t the cause of climate change, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Don’t be an asshole. No one is saying that we shouldn’t switch. We are saying that a huge gas tax right now isn’t the way to go. The time to jack up the gas tax is when gasoline powered vehicles are purely a matter of choice. When the infrastructure is there, when people can get a cheap and reliable used electric, etc. Until then infrastructure and subsidies/rebates will have more effect without causing pain to those least able to afford it.
TL;DR: Don’t be smug.
trollhattan
@Kent:
When the…non-dust settles the impact on poor communities will be stark and issues of environmental justice [fingers crossed] will get fresh attention. IIUC there’s strong evidence that asthma frequency correlates with conditions where one lives.
I ponder what life would be like if we still used leaded gasoline.
Kent
Average Joes believe a lot of shit that isn’t true. Are we talking about public perception as influenced by things like Fox News? Or are we talking about actual facts?
I’m not going to argue with you about what a lot of Americans believe or don’t believe. But if density was the key contributing factor to NYC and not incompetent Federal response then we would have raging out-of-control epidemics in Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, and Seoul. Which are all much closer to the point of origin. But we don’t.
For some reason, Americans rarely look outside their borders for examples and lessons. American exceptionalism I guess.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Also, the increase in fuel efficient cars has resulted in a decrease in revenues from gas taxes. And I just ran across this item.
So, the larger need for revenues has pushed California to possibly impede the move to electric vehicles. A perverse disincentive.
Tolls, congestion charges, HOV lanes just piss off people who need to get where they are going.
It’s a hard sell, but there may be calls to increase income taxes rather than property taxes.
CaseyL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: A friend of mine just loaned me Station Eleven. Gorgeous, gorgeous writing: you feel as though you’re there. I’ve reached a part where the story seems to be diving into a Trope, though, and I hope she does something different with it than what I expect.
Kilos of Whiskey
@CaseyL: Those are all valid and real constraints, and many can be addressed by electric “micromobilty”… I drive the kids around on an electric cargo bike in the warmer months, and it’s amazing how easy the hills become with an electric assist.
Safe biking space is a necessary prerequisite, so cities that make some moves in that direction are setting themselves up well for the future
trollhattan
@Kent:
I will assert the combination of delayed response and density created the toll. New York State and City were fortunately way the hell ahead of Trump and that has surely saved tens of thousands already. Now, what happens in Atlanta and Miami and Houston et al remains to be seen.
Roger Moore
@natem:
My feeling is that Angelenos’ love for the Red Cars was sort of like Brooklynites’ love for the Dodgers: they loved the things in the abstract, but not enough of them actively patronized their institutions to keep them in profitable. The Red Cars had a brief resurgence during WWII when taking public transit was both patriotic and frequently necessary because of rationing, but they had been in long-term decline for many years before that.
Kent
@Brachiator: Yes. These are ENORMOUSLY complex problems. And it is all inter-related. Zoning, housing, and urban planning have as much to do with the problem as the type of vehicles that people drive. The fact that workers in CA have to drive 40 miles to work is more of a problem than the type of vehicles that they drive. And is frankly unsustainable long-term if we are ever going to solve climate change.
I think it was Obama who once said something to the effect of: “As a President you are never faced with any easy problems. Because the easy problems all get solved long before they reach your desk.”
I have no faith that we are going to solve any of these problems in the US before events overtake us. There is just too much inertia, and too many vested interests. We seem uniquely bad at solving tough problems. And that didn’t used to be the case.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Origuy: Oh wow. I want to do that. In the After Time, of course.
@CaseyL: I hope you keep enjoying it. One thing that added to my enjoyment is that a lot of it takes place in parts of Michigan and Ontario where I grew up. So I recognize place names, even for smallish towns.
natem
@Brachiator:
God how I hated it when they turned the carpool on the 110 into a toll road. Driving to LAX from Glendale went from bad to outright monstrous.
Brachiator
@Kent:
Again, this is why we have science. The researchers in the Guardian story flatly declared that the various analyses did not show a causal link.
Nuance matters. Your original assertion was too broad, and potentially misleading.
mrmoshpotato
@Nicole: Watching it right now (the question is at 68 minutes on NBC News’ YouTube stream). He brilliantly shuts down this BS in a matter-of-fact manner.
natem
@Roger Moore: Yeah, the whole “GM and the other automakers killed the Red Cars” is a meme. They can document ridership drops on some lines all the way back to the 1920s.
Kent
NYC was a week behind Seattle in closing down schools. In fact the entire state of Washington closed down schools on March 13. NYC took until March 17. That was on de Blasio not Trump.
But then a mayor should not have been in the position of making those decisions. If we had actual leadership at the Federal level guided by experts this entire experience would have been different.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
One of the benefits of a gas tax is that it creates revenue from the people who are using the service it supports. Tolls, congestion charges, and the like have the same benefit: they make drivers pay for road upkeep. That seems like a desirable goal.
Brachiator
@Kent:
I don’t believe in the myth of “the good old days when we solved problems.” I think we have done okay and can do better.
Lots of anecdotes here about Los Angeles air pollution. We live in a basin and there are suggestions that even when Native Americans lived here, there were air problems caused by fires used for heating, etc.
However, I remember when we would have Stage 3 Smog Alerts and school kids were warned to stay in their classrooms. They could not even go out to play at recess. I don’t think these happen anymore, and it’s thanks to successful efforts to reduce air pollution.
I also remember when conservatives kept insisting that demands that auto makers take steps to reduce pollution would add too much to the cost of vehicles. And yet, over time, one of the most effective devices used to reduce pollution, the catalytic converter, not only did what it was supposed to do, but did so without jacking up auto prices.
Finding solutions is sometimes fitful, never as fast as some would like. But we are getting there.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Anderson Cooper just face palmed at the mayor of Las Vegas.
trollhattan
@Kent:
TBF Seattle (King County actually) had Case #1 in the entire country. What we (collectively) badly miscalculated was how well established the virus already was.
“Frontline” last night was very good, giving a capsule history of COVID-19 to date. Impressive job done and lots of details I was unaware of.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Years ago there were rallies at the Capitol in Sac over more rigorous auto emissions testing, organized by radio talk show hosts “on behalf” of the right to drive old, high-polluting clunkers. Ditto truckers re. new diesel emissions regs. Basically, “we have the right to pollute” and “you’ll take away my carburetor something something cold dead fingers.”
Those were innocent times.
Sure Lurkalot
@raven: I just did my first grocery delivery today and my procurer texted me often and with pictures for alternatives. It helped that my grocery website prompts you to suggest substitutes for each item when you place your order. I ordered yesterday and had groceries at 9:30 am.
I ordered some non-perishable food items from Costco…just got notified the delivery will be tomorrow…12 days for 2 day delivery!
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
It’s odd. Libertarians sometimes make this argument. It is insufficient. I once spent two years largely working from home. Rarely drove my car. Walked to the grocery store. Ordered a shitload of stuff from Amazon and other sellers. Trucks directly and indirectly brought goods and services to me, but I paid little directly in terms of gas taxes.
The trucks also probably caused more wear and tear on roads than if I had done more driving.
And as noted, increased fuel efficiency has decreased gas tax revenues. And freeways, supported by general revenues, were seen as essential in spurring economic growth in California, and succeeded in this goal.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Thanks for the tip. I will try to catch this program.
prostratedragon
This is late, so I will also mention it elsewhere.
Tonight radio station WFMT Chicago will broadcast a performance of a new work, Terra Nostra (Our Earth) by composer Stacy Garrop. It’s an oratorio setting of ancient and modern poetry around the themes Creation of the World, The Rise of Humanity, and Searching for Balance. There’s a link to excerpts of the text and score at that post. I think this will show up tomorrow and for a couple of weeks thereafter at the WFMT podcast page.
Wow! Edited to add, at 8pm Central time.
Kent
That’s why a carbon tax is a superior policy to a gas tax. It would be paid by Amazon and everyone else much more evenly.
Uncle Cosmo
@Jeffro: Try this on for size: Richard Wilbur, “Advice to a Prophet” (1961).
I believe “the prophet” in question was Sir Bertrand Russell & the issue, nuclear disarmament – but it works almost as well here.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Sure, but you paid them indirectly through the shipping fees, which have to be adjusted to account for all the shipper’s costs.
It’s very likely that the truck did more damage to the road than you would have done by driving. It’s not at all obvious that the truck did more damage to the road than you and everyone else whose package was on the truck would have done if you had all driven to the store individually to get everything the truck delivered. In fact, I would guess the opposite: it’s more efficient in time, energy, and road damage to put a whole bunch of packages on a truck and have it follow an efficient route to deliver them to many different people than it is to have everyone drive to the store.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The building in Pasadena where I lived last installed a charging system for 5 cars about a year ago. City ordinance. Just over 3 years ago my POS van died and I had to buy another car. Looked at an electric but they weren’t quite up to snuff for the money. Now they are. Charging is an issue but not an insurmountable one. There are 2 rapid chargers a half a block from where I’m sitting right now. And the cars get better rapidly. I’d buy one now, if I could.
Ruckus
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Urban living isn’t bad, if you don’t live in a 5th floor walk up, that you share with rats bigger than a cocker spaniel, in a building built by a trump family member.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: I think the closest charging place to here is the Galleria, so that’s a bit inconvenient and there’s only units for 6 cars there. That would be no help for diving out to the sticks.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: I think you were headed out to Walgreens or CVS last night. Did you manage to snag a thermometer and a pulse oximeter?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Ruckus: Urban living is designed by gregarious exhibitionists for gregarious exhibitionists. I knew every detail of the lives of the people who lived around me, and it wasn’t because they intentionally shared them with me.
ziggy
Actually that timeline has just been thrown into doubt. Three earlier deaths from Covid were just discovered in California. And these cases had no history of travel, therefore Covid was in circulation in California by sometime in January, in order to infect these victims and then progress to death. It is going to be interesting if we can ever get to the bottom of this!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@ziggy: I was talking to someone this morning who believes his ex and her two sisters caught it while in California for the Grammys. All three had the same symptoms: shortness of breath, fever, and profound fatigue. They’re looking forward to being able to take antibody tests.