The start of 2020 has certainly been a challenging time for a lot of people. The global pandemic is spreading. New numbers of COVID-19 cases push ever skyward, it seems there is no end in sight yet. No one knows how far this will go. One thing that we do know is that lockdowns all across the US are getting even stricter. Stay-at-home warnings are not always being respected as they should. But experts know that fighting this kind of thing is a numbers game.
We’ve all seen the charts lately, the scary infographics showing how just one person can infect thousands in no time at all. Simply attending a backyard BBQ with friends, is all that it takes to keep perpetuating this virus. Many people all across the US have not been respecting the severity of the situation – the grave danger we’re all in together. So in the best interest of the public at large, many government officials have begun shutting down whole municipalities.
Major restrictions are in place for people who wish to leave their homes. The only acceptable errands at this point being grocery store and pharmacy runs. This has left a lot of people feeling imprisoned in their own homes. At a loss for what to do with themselves. We’re so used to enjoying the freedom of just walking out our door and doing whatever we want! We have no understanding of the ripple effect we create in some ways.
But Mother Nature does understand. It has taken her no time at all to begin healing from the damage we humans have been doing to the environment. One such place where this is really evident, is good old Los Angeles, the City of Angels. It’s been famous for years now, not only for the glamorous Hollywood angle but also for that nasty layer of smog they’ve got going on. But these days L.A. has been enjoying some of the brightest, clearest skies they’ve seen in ages. For nearly a month now, the whole Los Angeles area has been breathing easier thanks to a combination of less automobile traffic and more wind, which is a wonderful thing to see. (1)
Smog-Free Cali
But it’s not just Los Angeles that’s been seeing vast improvements. Northward in the San Francisco Bay Area, pollution numbers are dropping everywhere. Throughout the North Bay and South Bay, the Air Quality Index (AQI) dropped into the single digits, which is incredible. Scores of between 0 and 50 are considered “good” by area officials. But AQI scores lately have been recorded at 9 in Napa, 8 in Vallejo, and 9 in San Martin. What’s even more incredible about this is that it represents a drop from 39, 37 and 34, respectively, recorded just one day previously.
In San Francisco, the AQI on one day was 37, and the next just 19. West Oakland went from 37 to 13 in the same 24 hour period. Amazing!
With lockdowns in effect throughout the state of California, they’ve seen a 70% reduction in cars on the road. Couple that with a few days worth of rain and wind, and it seems we’ve got ourselves a brand new California!
As this pandemic drags on and we begin to settle into a new normal of “less outside playing, more inside handwashing”, a silver lining has begun popping up here and there. Many of us are learning to slow down and find a new way of being in life. We’re not so busy, not so rushed. We’ve begun to see how all the factories, cars, jet engines, and cruise ships contribute to an imbalance that isn’t sustainable.
Did Mama Nature just have enough of all our shenanigans and put us in lockdown? It does feel a little like that. But in an age where we constantly want the newest thing and more of all the other things too, we’re now seeing in real time what happens when we stop all that nonsense. When we don’t get those things. Nothing actually happens except that the world keeps spinning, and it turns out we get to breathe that much better. Hopefully when things go back to normal, whatever that ends up looking like in the future, we’ll all remember this. A glimpse back at “simpler times”, the environment of 20 years ago, and think twice about whether yet another cell phone is what our world needs right now.
