5 ms·

Massively increased WFH (triggered by the pandemic) has done more to improve carbon emissions from transportation than any electric vehicle movement will ever d

Massively increased WFH (triggered by the pandemic) has done more to improve carbon emissions from transportation than any electric vehicle movement will ever do. yet you don't see a hard line top-down push for more WFH, only resistance, why?

hnhg 4y ago
Another one is the fashion industry[1], amongst others. But that would be inconvenient for a lot of folks and so everyone forgets about it. [1] https://carbonliteracy.com/fast-fashions-carbon-footprint/ https://carbonliteracy.com/fast-fashions-carbon-footprint/
gedy 4y ago
Because many people don't really care about carbon, climate, and just latch on to that for their biases and agendas
Schiendelman 4y ago
There’s a real reason for this. Notice that traffic is back to normal? The demand for space on the road was WAY higher than the people actually using it - pre-pandemic far more people were using public transport. Even with a sizable increase in WFH, the people who were previously dissuaded from driving alone by traffic have filled much of that road space with cars (in the case of Seattle, nearly all of it).
- bnlxbnlx 4y ago
  thx for pointing this out. i wasn’t aware of this before, but it be totally makes sense. so we need also need to keep reducing (rather than increase) road space in combination with reducing reason to travel/commute at all.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I think traffic in Boston/Cambridge is way better than I recall it being pre-pandemic. There’s still some at rush hours, but it feels like a lot less to me.
VBprogrammer 4y ago
Indeed. I get the feeling it's due to a combination of sunk cost fallacy (we've spent a lot of money on a fancy central London office space god damn it) and upper management wanting to maintain control over their little kingdom.
slowmovintarget 4y ago
Most jobs are on-site. The software industry, and things similar to it, like finance, certainly are suitable to work-from-home answers. But construction, service trades (plumbing, electrical, roofing...), transportation, factory work, retail, restaurant work, farming, janitorial, and more, require people to show up for work at specific places. How do you mandate that the work most people do, that can't be done from home, should be done from home. Yes the lock-down reduced carbon emissions. But those bounced right back, except for those few "tech" jobs that stayed remote. Maybe require tech workers to stay home? Maybe the tech-worker shuttles could be electric? I don't think government is particularly good at nuanced rule-making. Let's solve the problem some other way.
- bcrosby95 4y ago
  Any office job is suitable to work from home.
- mshake2 4y ago
  The point is that people are saying loudly that this is literally a matter of life and death, but we're not being told to continue stay home if our job can be done from home, we're being told to go back to the office (in a EV!). It's doublethink.
  - epgui 4y ago
    > It’s doublethink. Yes. If humans were any good at thinking, we’d be trying a little harder to stop pooping where we eat. We’d have been decarbonizing everything a whole lot sooner. But we’re not all that good at thinking, so here we are and this is how it’s going.
  - BHSPitMonkey 4y ago
    If we could wave a magic wand and suddenly make it so that the currently-externalized costs to everything that we do (e.g. the costs of correcting all the downstream impacts of things like driving a mile down the road, manufacturing a plastic bottle, ordering meat, disposing of waste items, etc.) became rolled into the up-front costs of these activities paid by companies and consumers, we'd have correct incentives informing every aspect of society and cities/commutes would look much different (out of necessity).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
melling 4y ago
Shouldn’t WFH be reflected in US oil consumption? https://www.statista.com/statistics/282716/oil-consumption-in-the-us-per-day/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/282716/oil-consumption-i...
jemmyw 4y ago
Yes but it has increased carbon emissions from heating and cooling because people are more dispersed in their own homes. I read an article that linked a study saying it was worse than if people commuted but I doubt one paper is worth much. I always assumed that WFH is better for emissions but that assumption isn't necessarily true.

hnhg 4y ago

Another one is the fashion industry[1], amongst others. But that would be inconvenient for a lot of folks and so everyone forgets about it. [1] https://carbonliteracy.com/fast-fashions-carbon-footprint/ https://carbonliteracy.com/fast-fashions-carbon-footprint/

gedy 4y ago

Because many people don't really care about carbon, climate, and just latch on to that for their biases and agendas

Schiendelman 4y ago

There’s a real reason for this. Notice that traffic is back to normal? The demand for space on the road was WAY higher than the people actually using it - pre-pandemic far more people were using public transport. Even with a sizable increase in WFH, the people who were previously dissuaded from driving alone by traffic have filled much of that road space with cars (in the case of Seattle, nearly all of it).

bnlxbnlx 4y ago
thx for pointing this out. i wasn’t aware of this before, but it be totally makes sense. so we need also need to keep reducing (rather than increase) road space in combination with reducing reason to travel/commute at all.
sokoloff 4y ago
I think traffic in Boston/Cambridge is way better than I recall it being pre-pandemic. There’s still some at rush hours, but it feels like a lot less to me.

VBprogrammer 4y ago

Indeed. I get the feeling it's due to a combination of sunk cost fallacy (we've spent a lot of money on a fancy central London office space god damn it) and upper management wanting to maintain control over their little kingdom.

slowmovintarget 4y ago

Most jobs are on-site. The software industry, and things similar to it, like finance, certainly are suitable to work-from-home answers. But construction, service trades (plumbing, electrical, roofing...), transportation, factory work, retail, restaurant work, farming, janitorial, and more, require people to show up for work at specific places. How do you mandate that the work most people do, that can't be done from home, should be done from home. Yes the lock-down reduced carbon emissions. But those bounced right back, except for those few "tech" jobs that stayed remote. Maybe require tech workers to stay home? Maybe the tech-worker shuttles could be electric? I don't think government is particularly good at nuanced rule-making. Let's solve the problem some other way.

bcrosby95 4y ago
Any office job is suitable to work from home.
mshake2 4y ago
The point is that people are saying loudly that this is literally a matter of life and death, but we're not being told to continue stay home if our job can be done from home, we're being told to go back to the office (in a EV!). It's doublethink.
- epgui 4y ago
  > It’s doublethink. Yes. If humans were any good at thinking, we’d be trying a little harder to stop pooping where we eat. We’d have been decarbonizing everything a whole lot sooner. But we’re not all that good at thinking, so here we are and this is how it’s going.
- BHSPitMonkey 4y ago
  If we could wave a magic wand and suddenly make it so that the currently-externalized costs to everything that we do (e.g. the costs of correcting all the downstream impacts of things like driving a mile down the road, manufacturing a plastic bottle, ordering meat, disposing of waste items, etc.) became rolled into the up-front costs of these activities paid by companies and consumers, we'd have correct incentives informing every aspect of society and cities/commutes would look much different (out of necessity).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

melling 4y ago

Shouldn’t WFH be reflected in US oil consumption? https://www.statista.com/statistics/282716/oil-consumption-in-the-us-per-day/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/282716/oil-consumption-i...

jemmyw 4y ago

Yes but it has increased carbon emissions from heating and cooling because people are more dispersed in their own homes. I read an article that linked a study saying it was worse than if people commuted but I doubt one paper is worth much. I always assumed that WFH is better for emissions but that assumption isn't necessarily true.