Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down

Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by aledalgrande on Sunday March 22, 2020 @10:43AM (#22655233)

I also have hope that this tragedy brings humanity forward. Not only with climate change, but a lot of other things. More contacts between people (video calls to friends and family far away). Doctors are increasing the use of video calling and sending prescriptions via email already. Bill Gates' 2015 TED now doesn't seem just a faraway prediction now, so hopefully governments will form a "health NATO". Seeing Venice with clean water will maybe make the administration think, "wow, this is gorgeous, why don't we find a way to keep it like this?" Just disconnected thoughts of hope.

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by jdhn on Sunday March 22, 2020 @11:24AM (#22655592)

Doesn't Venice have "clean water" because all the silt that was suspended in the water due to gondola traffic has now settled on the bottom of the canals?

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by hoorayimhelping on Sunday March 22, 2020 @11:44AM (#22655795)

clear water doesn't necessarily mean clean water.

Turbidity, which is how cloudy water is, is on a different axis from pollution, toxicity, and mineral content of water. There are heavily stained lakes in Florida with a lot of silt mixed up that you can't see further than a couple feet in that would be fairly safe to drink out of.

Mono Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_Lake, by contrast is very clear, but it's a soda lake and most normal aquatic life can't live there.

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by jdhn on Sunday March 22, 2020 @12:27PM (#22656163)

>clear water doesn't necessarily mean clean water

I agree, hence my "clean water" in quotes. However, a lot of people do think that opaque water is inherently dirty and clear water is inherently clean, even if the opaqueness is simply due to suspended organic particles that will settle over time.

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by RhodesianHunter on Sunday March 22, 2020 @11:38AM (#22655740)

Venice doesn't have clean water. They're images from another town at another time in the latest iteration of "take an old picture, make up a lie relevant to current news, and pass it around for clicks"

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by sigmaprimus on Sunday March 22, 2020 @11:46AM (#22655826)

Citation? I was also fooled into believing those photos if your coment is accurate.

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by caseysoftware on Sunday March 22, 2020 @11:56AM (#22655896)

"The swans in the viral posts regularly appear in the canals of Burano, a small island in the greater Venice metropolitan area, where the photos were taken. The “Venetian” dolphins were filmed at a port in Sardinia, in the Mediterranean Sea, hundreds of miles away. No one has figured out where the drunken elephant photos came from, but a Chinese news report debunked the viral posts: While elephants did recently come through a village in Yunnan Province, China, their presence isn’t out of the norm, they aren’t the elephants in the viral photos, and they didn’t get drunk and pass out in a tea field."

Ref: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/03/coronavir...

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by sigmaprimus on Sunday March 22, 2020 @12:22PM (#22656114)

Thanks for the link, I appreciate it. I also find it very disappointing that I was fooled into believing this and I have a hard time understanding the motives behind the OP of the canal pictures. I guess I was blinded by my really wanting to see something positive comming from this crisis, it is illogical but realizing this story was not true is making my eyes water right now.

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by caseysoftware on Sunday March 22, 2020 @12:26PM (#22656151)

It's natural to actively seek a silver lining when terrible things happen. We all want to know that someone somewhere is better off in some moral or philosophical (as opposed to financial) way when tragedy strikes. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of that for internet points or to push their current agenda.

If you feel frustrated and hopeless, give to a local food bank, buy music or books from your favorite creators, have a virtual happy hour with friends or family, drop that friend a note and catch up, or work on that idea you've had.

There are lots of bright spots out there and we can create our own too.

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by pm90 on Sunday March 22, 2020 @03:28PM (#22657804)

> but realizing this story was not true is making my eyes water right now.

I didn't realize it could have such a powerful impact on you, sorry to hear that. I also saw something to that effect, accepted it, and moved on. I don't think there is really a way to consume information without trusting some things, but seeking deeper validation for things you may think are important. In light of other news, this didn't seem like something worth validating, so I assume many many people have internalized it as truth somewhat.

Such is the nature of disinformation.

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by fyfy18 on Monday March 23, 2020 @01:18AM (#22661443)

Those photos of Venice having clean water were proven to be fake news. Technically the photos are part of the Venice district, but not the part people think of.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22619638

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Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by canada_dry on Sunday March 22, 2020 @01:16PM (#22656605)

As Noah Harari eloquently puts it... the seeds of nationalism that have been sewn in the last few years make this very unlikely.

https://youtu.be/EwusbaOFr2Y?t=116

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