Apocaly-optism.

This is the story all about how

Human lives got twisted, upside down,

So I’m gonna take a minute,

Sit right there,

To tell you how Earth became the planet that got back fresh air.

Obviously the Fresh Prince does it better:  

You can be optimistic in the face of an apocalypse.  It’s kind of my default setting.  I was once described as “an optimist in a very sticky coating of pessimism.”  And it is super accurate.  I love to revel in every possible problematic option before hoping for an excellent outcome.  I like to plan for the worst and be pleasantly surprised by the best.  Who has the stomach for constant disappointment of being a true optimist?  Not me.

But I am super optimistic about this whole global shutdown thing.  Sure the virus is bad and nasty and a lot of people will die.  But people have always been dying.  This is just a few more in one prolonged event.  But the overall impacts of shutting down world travel, minimising traffic, reducing production of non-essentials is that we are pausing a whole lot of pollution.  

We’ve already seen falls in Nitrogen Dioxide during the early stages of the China lockdowns:

NASA Earth Observatory.

 And similar drops in Italy: 

This is a Earthwide go-slow on a scale we’ve never really seen before, not since we started going as fast as we do now.  But there was a teeny-tiny trial of this idea way back in 2001.  After those planes crashed into the Twin Towers, planes were grounded across USA for, wait for it, three whole days.  And meteorologists (weather-nerds) found it made a difference, both in terms of emitted pollution and temperature changes caused by contrails. 
Read that story and watch the video from Penn State Uni.

 Could it really have made a difference?  Here’s the video of the S11 plane shut down.  All those planes, grounded.  Four a little more dramatically than the other hundreds.

The global plane shut down for Corona virus alone is already so many times bigger than this.  Just look at the decline in planes tracked:

From Flight Radar.

So while the humans are away, chilling in their lounges and learning to love where they live, the rest of the planet is starting a long breath in.  Quieter streets.  Cleaner air.  Things are changing.  I only hope the slow-down lasts long enough to start making a difference.