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NASA images show China pollution clear amid slowdown
- kitsuac 7y agoIt's crazy to think, if human civilization were to shut down the earth would fairly rapidly become much better off. Other species would flourish again, plants would slowly take over our cities. There'd be less bickering. Hm.
- agumonkey 7y ago"a new market for virus infection has emerged" -- financial analyst
- w-ll 7y ago“Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.” ― Douglas Adams
- saagarjha 7y agoAlso Douglas Adams: “In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.“
- w-ll 7y agoI had that quote on the tip of my tongue, but couldn't fully remember it. I have the books, and original radio broadcasts, and I love the movie with Martin Freeman and Mos Def, but my all time fav is the TV series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_th...
- bpodgursky 7y agoUntil the sun turned into a red giant, and all life on earth, potentially in the universe, was extinguished forever. Which is kinda sad for all those species and the universe overall. But yeah, less bickering.
- FalconSensei 7y ago> Until the sun turned into a red giant That's still far away
- rad_gruchalski 7y agoIndeed. Before that happens there is also the supervolcano in Oregon and probably dozens of huge rocks on the scale similar to what happened 65m years ago. But let’s not be pessimistic! Think of the children.
- willis936 7y agoThe current push of environmentalism is sticking because it is clear that the current level of comfort is unsustainable on our current path. Our habitat is facing an existential crisis. I don’t think its noble to ignore the well-being of other lifeforms, but I think it is inaccurate to say that we are pushing environmentalism for their benefit.
- onetimemanytime 7y agoTrue but the point is to make earth a better place for us. But plants and animals with fight tooth and nails for sunlight and food ;)
- hprotagonist 7y agoDuring the plague years, airborne lead levels in Europe fell to 0. When the sickness came, it caused massive social upheaval in the populations it infected, shutting down entire human industries as ravaged communities went into damage control. One of these affected industries, according to historian Alexander More from Harvard University, was lead mining and smelting by medieval workers – and thanks to his team's new study, we've got more than historical records to show that. https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-ice-dating-from-the-black-death-challenges-the-idea-of-natural-lead-levels https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-ice-dating-from-the-bla...
- ajross 7y agoThis was a little different. Lead levels were due to iron smelting -- the production of new iron from ore. As the population dropped, it became more economical to recycle already smelted iron that wasn't being used any more (because its owners were, y'know, dead). So there was no market for ore for a few decades. The pollution levels in that case reflect a rapid change in a single industry due to what amounts to a buffer overflow, not economic activity per se.
- greglindahl 7y agoChina also has mini-mills that process steel scrap. They are cheaper to run than iron smelters.
- baybal2 7y ago> Lead levels were due to iron smelting Not only iron, but silver as well
- almost_usual 7y agoNot much changes without a forcing function.
- daxfohl 7y agoSo much for the argument that cutting pollution would never be possible.
- Damorian 7y agoYou do realize the economy came to a halt with everybody isolated in quarentines? I think we have to sacrifice air quality for the sake of progress for now.
- CountHackulus 7y agoHmmm, survival of the planet vs progress of the economy.
- briandear 7y agoThat’s a false dichotomy.
- FalconSensei 7y agoBut that's what Damorian was suggesting
- ars 7y agoKilling progress of economy would make the planet much much worse off long term. Notice how the richest countries have the cleanest environments - that's not by happenstance, it's because with basic needs met, people are willing to spend effort on the environment.
- t-writescode 7y agoIt might also be able to be argued that those countries refuse to allow production that includes all those chemicals, so we offload that production to other countries that aren’t so strict, suggesting that we ourselves and our wants are a major source of their production and that all these advanced countries are doing a great job contributing to pollution, just through a middle man.
- xbmcuser 7y agoI have been saying for a while that the world is going to start getting shortages for many items we use as China is somewhere in the value chain for most of the world's production. China can't go back to full production anytime soon as it has just now got some control of the virus spread and it would need to stay in this mode for another 1-2 months if it wants to stop the spread.
- solotronics 7y agoI sold all my tech stocks last Monday and went all in on SPY puts. This will impact way more than 2008.
- AnthonyMouse 7y agoThere are a lot of things that are only produced in China, but how many of those things can reasonably be produced somewhere else even if they're currently not? Production issues in China are bad for China, but from an economic perspective they may even stimulate the countries that production moves to. Also, the efficient market hypothesis says that any public information should already be priced in.
- Aperocky 7y agoThat somewhere else is rapidly becoming a bigger problem than China right now.
- xvilka 7y agoIf you consider that many countries will be affected by the virus, then the move will not happen in the near term. It might happen after the global recovery though.
- xbmcuser 7y agoIt takes years to set up industries. This is not a video game other countries cant start producing in the next few months it will take time. And how willing would someone be in investing billions today that might be useful in 1-2 years but at the same time be aware that once china is full production they might not be able to compete for price/quality. Even the machines to manufacture stuff are mostly produced in china
- gentleman11 7y agoI have read that lung diseases are common in China and that in big cities the smog shortens the average lifespan by 5years. Could better air quality for one year significantly improve people’s health, or is one year too short?
- qqqwerty 7y agoThis is entirely speculation, but I think the poor air quality could also explain/contribute to the differences in COVID-19 mortality. I read somewhere that smokers were more susceptible to the disease. It seems like populations with poorer air quality could also be more susceptible.
- sturza 7y agosecond order consequences
- parsimo2010 7y agoThis reminds me of when all the planes in the USA (and several other countries) were grounded after 9/11 and there was some evidence that it affected our temperature variation because there weren't any contrails in the sky. http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.climate/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.climate...