The strategies of avoiding coronavirus — staying home, not flying and driving, using on-line shopping — also reduce your carbon footprint. This social distancing is a green new deal... if it persists. Ever start something for one reason and then continue it for another?
Charles Duhigg, the author of “The Power of Habit” and a former New York Times reporter, said habits built over lifetimes are hard to shake. “As soon as the environment becomes stable again, the habit starts to reassert itself” unless there is a “powerful reward” to the new behavior.Yeah, but shaking hands didn't affect your carbon footprint (handprint?).
Mr. Duhigg said that while there is no set time for a habit to form or change, some cultural habits could, if the pandemic response lasts long enough, take hold. One example: shaking hands. “I could see other kinds of behavior replacing that habit, or maybe just diminishing,” and wondered aloud whether his own children might one day think “hand shaking is a weird, old-timey thing.”
Some practices, like videoconferencing and telecommuting, may gain ground, Mr. Duhigg said, for a reward of saved time and trouble. He expressed doubts, however, that leisure travel behavior would see a similar shift. “It seems unlikely to me that people will say, ‘You know, I loved not taking vacations. I learned staying at home with my kids is so rewarding!’”Oh, the sarcasm! What I'm picturing is a married couple where one of them says I loved staying home, and the other is massively alarmed if not angry. The one then adds the climate change factor to his (and I do mean "his") side of the argument, and the other explodes in a confetti burst of wokeism. Ha ha, the anti-travelist wins! The erstwhile bucket list kicks the bucket, and the forced stay at home goes on and on... until death comes to take that frustrated travel bug on that long-anticipated, truly exotic trip — out of the world altogether.
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63 comments:
Will massive stockpiling of toilet paper, paper towels, and hand sanitizer continue? It may impact my stock portfolio selection.
Seriously, I wonder if the whole hand sanitizer thing will be everywhere. The only FDA approved non-rinse off ingredient is isopropyl alcohol. The FDA decided long ago that soap and water was just as effective, which is why there is only one approved ingredient. This means hand sanitizer is an over-the-counter drug manufactured by licensed drug manufacturing facilities. Plus, many drug manufacturers won't produce it because of the large volume of inflammable liquid (i.e. explosion proof equipment). So, even if you decided to get into the business, it would take the normal 12 months to bring the new formula/product to market.
Guess what? People are getting into the business without regard to the regulatory requirements. The product is so simple, I have a feeling the FDA won't care, at least for a while.
Never let a crisis go to waste. How many ways can we use this tragedy to benefit our political preferences?
@lgv
Can you connect your comment to the topic of climate-change-related habits?
If not, I'm going to delete it. You've got the first comment and to me, it looks like you're changing the subject. I'm doing posts on different topics and it seems like there is almost a game of making everything about toilet paper. I feel like my blog is getting TP'ed.
It is articles like this that heighten my suspicion about the forcing of behavior in the first place.
"Never let a crisis go to waste. How many ways can we use this tragedy to benefit our political preferences?"
The article ends with “Never waste even a tragic crisis" (quoting Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota).
But understanding climate change and doing things that can help the problem does not have to be seen as "political preference." I'm tired of politicizing everything. The coronavirus and the recommended social distancing are being treated as if they are political (less so as time goes on). I like seeing people pull together and do the right thing. Not being so damned partisan about everything is one of the right things I'd like to see come out of this crisis.
The answer is "To stop climate change."
It doesn't matter what the question is.
I'm not aware of any flight cancellations, meaning there are fewer planes in the sky, though that may be just around the corner. My flight last week to PHL was remarkably empty; first was nearly full (12 seats), coach had no more than 10 or 12 people. Airlines will likely start cancelling if that keeps up.
It seems that fewer flights, fewer miles driven in cars, maybe fewer train and subway trips, must reduced carbon emissions. People working from home will shift electric consumption from offices to the home, but unless the offices close down (HVAC, lights, etc.) there won't be much less consumption.
There should be some reduction in economic activity as a result, whether it will be large or not remains to be seen. I'm not predicting anything as I'm horrible at that sort of thing.
That would be nice, but I’m seeing more and more politicization, rather than less and less. Democrats have been using the coronavirus from the start for its campaign implications and Republicans have responded by playing political cover. Global warming, of course, is pure politics (I’m sure you’ve noticed that the “cure” for global warming reads like a hard-left wish list and is exactly the same as the cure for every other crisis).
In real life, people have come together. My neighbourhood Facebook group is full of offers to help during this period of mass self-quarantine and many of us are going through our games closet and putting what we won’t use out on the curb for anyone who needs activities.
I like seeing people pull together and do the right thing. Not being so damned partisan about everything is one of the right things I'd like to see come out of this crisis.
I just want to remind you that you believe that women are so prone to doing the right thing for people, they would step aside so trans athletes can take over women's athletics.
So....doing the right thing and "pulling together" has different meanings to different people. Not being partisan has different meanings to different people. Does it mean, for women, for you, that we must do what we are told is the kind thing to do? And do we not look at who is doing the deciding about what is "kind"?
Realizing that people take advantage of situations and force others to comply out of kindness is smart, not partisan.
And yes, in real life people come together.
But I've also been through a fear cycle in America with SARS. And I had to get out of America to get out of the fear cycle.
The grave.
The ultimate travel destination.
Isn't it the Left who - throughout my lifetime - has preached "the personal is political"?
Most people just want to live their lives, and not get politics shoved in their face every waking minute. The Left doesn't play that.
It reminds me of how media people pulled together during Katrina-- pulled together to try to destroy President Bush.
I like seeing people pull together and do the right thing.
It’s the “right thing” that’s been politicized.
It once meant helping your neighbors in time of crisis and then going back to live your own lives.
Now everything is a crisis and the “right thing” is always to permanently turn over your freedom to the government-run collective.
" Not being so damned partisan about everything is one of the right things I'd like to see come out of this crisis."
It could if it killed every single Democrat. But that's unlikely.
"Not being so damned partisan about everything is one of the right things I'd like to see come out of this crisis."
Didn't you post your son's bashing of Trump's handling of the coronavirus "crisis?"
There is no climate change humans can affect. It's a false premise.
Anybody who seriously wants to understand Democrat political strategy should read “The Power of Habit” BTW.
It’s a very useful book for a lot of reasons. During this time of dialing stuff back, I would recommend it if you want to use this as an opportunity for change. I used it to become good enough on the piano that people ask me to play. It’s a short book. My daughter works with autistic children, and she uses the same principles to help them, because it works.
I was just peer pressured by a friend to go out on a smallish boat with her children who have been partying in Ft Lauderdale all week at clubs. When I said no, they got snippy. “If it gets me, it gets me” they said, I quoted the need to “flatten the curve” and pointed out that the main reason it was old people who died in Italy was that that triaged who would live and who would die after getting overwhelmed. “Shrug”
It’s an interesting study in denial. It will make me redouble my efforts to ensure that my opinions on climate change are truly data driven. I think that they are, but I will widen my reading on the evidence to make sure I am not missing something to comfort myself.
It's not as if we've developed drastically new and different ways of doing things in the last two weeks. Video conferencing, working remotely, online shopping, these are all things that have been around for years. Joe Biden's recent virtual "town hall" provides one example of why these things haven't already taken hold as the preferred way to do things. Tech is great except when it's not, which, unfortunately, is a lot of the time. And what's the carbon footprint of this great tech solution?
CNN is non stop partisan advantage seeking from this virus. People have been putting it on in the sports bar because there are no sports. I don’t watch Fox, but good for them if they are dialing it down.
I'm old enough to remember when liberals told me that overseas travel was important to broadening your perspective and how terrible it was that so few Americans had passports and regularly traveled internationally.
Like, in 2019.
God, I am so sick of being gaslit by idiots with access to the media.
People helping people is normal and goes on all the time. It’s when The Government gets involved that it becomes political. And worse.
I still haven’t altered my lifestyle and can’t see much of it here in AZ either. Except for empty store shelves. Restaurants and such don’t seem emptier than normal. Seems to me Blues are the ones doing the most panicking. Odd perhaps since when it comes to “climate change “ they’re the least willing to actually do anything themselves about it.
There certainly will be changes, I believe. But the changes that are most likely to flow from this stem from the loss of wealth in the stock market, and the loss of wealth as smaller consumer businesses like restaurants struggle, with some going under. Our concept of risk will change to become less expansive, especially if we are now in a longer-term down cycle. None of that is new, but it will be different, I believe.
I am bothered by the government's terrible fiscal situation. This is what rainy-day funds were for. But we have been printing money and abusing the markets with central interference for so long, we have a huge negative rainy-day fund. This is a time when capital from the different levels of government could make a difference in an emergency. Not just printing money for J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. It is non-partisan; both parties have been careless and way too eager to "make everything awesome" at all times.
The article gives ammunition to those who believe that climate change talk is just a tool to ruin the economy. If one is a believer, isn't better to avoid the impression that one just wants to break everybody's toys?
What I'm picturing is a married couple where one of them says I loved staying home, and the other is massively alarmed if not angry. The one then adds the climate change factor to his (and I do mean "his") side of the argument, and the other explodes in a confetti burst of wokeism.
I read that wrong at first. I thought it would be the other way around: the wife wanting to take vacations and the husband wanting to stay home. Maybe it's generational, but that's always been my experience. Even today is there really enough wokeism in most households to change that?
But you're being non-inclusive. How does it work out in the Buttigieg home?
If you view lots of small businesses permanently closing as "green," then I guess this could end up greening lots of areas.
I went for my regular bi-weekly manicure/pedicure yesterday.The shop owner told me business has been half the usual for two weeks.She is going to ask her landlord for a discount on the rent.If the landlord says no, she will probably close.She opened back up after being flooded by hurricane Sandy, but with this she can not predict when the panic will end. It costs her roughly $5,000 a month to be open, so she said she can not keep putting out more than she takes in. Friend went to Peter Lugers for dinner Saturday night, said restaurant had about half the usual customers.Many of these small businesses just can't take the hit of no customers for a month or two.When people decide it is safe to emerge from isolation they might find many of their favorite shops gone.
Unrelated to climate change, but here is my own ghoulish near futurism: in the coming month or two we will have a new division between the people who caught corona and survived (the Recovereds) and those that have not (the Vulnerables). The Recovereds will be able to eat at restaurants, and go to church, and ride on airplanes, and pick their noses and Vulnerables will need to wipe the world down with purell before opening each door. The Recovereds will have dinner parties that the Vulnerables are too scared to attend. Only the Recovereds will see movies at the theater.
ICU’s already crowded in New Jersey and it’s just starting.
https://www.roi-nj.com/2020/03/14/opinion/life-at-the-epicenter-of-n-j-s-coronavirus-outbreak/
Ann needs to create an “I’m tired of politicizing things bullshit” tag. Works just like civility bullshit.
AA: But understanding climate change and doing things that can help the problem does not have to be seen as "political preference." I'm tired of politicizing everything.
Delivering your political preferences under a nice lardy layer of moralizing doesn't demonstrate any real weariness with politicizing. It just highlights your well-known tendency to confuse your political preferences with moral righteousness. And how much you enjoy holy-rolling on select issues.
The coronavirus and the recommended social distancing are being treated as if they are political (less so as time goes on).
I'm seeing the opposite. People tolerate restrictions and hardships for the common good when they agree that there is a common good being served. They'll get behind restrictions for infectious disease control, but there is no widespread level of trust in the people pushing apocalyptic CAGW such that freedom-limiting, economy-tanking measures will become accepted as a new normal.
Ha ha, the anti-travelist wins!
Meanwhile, in a more realistic scenario, people are noticing that post-travel ban international airfares are very cheap right now (even the extra-earth-rapey non-cattle-class fares), and, knowing that humanity is not going to bend the knee to the tyrannical Green New Deal hypocrites and that life will go on, are scheduling some travel in the future. The woke-scold in the family gets left at home to enjoy her moral superiority.
People do a lot of things to comfort themselves when they’re faced with bad news, they deny it, they minimize it, they get angry when statistics hit them in the face. Then they attack the messenger, the statisticians, the scientists, anyone who they suspect of pushing a political viewpoint, even if the underlying facts are solid, based on evidence.
I’ve seen this phenomenon with global warming and this pandemic. Isn’t it time to put down the sword and pick up the plowshare? I know there is still some strong suspicion that what is happening is overblown, not really happening, completely based on politics despite Trump actually declaring a national emergency and oh won’t we look back and laugh at our foolishness? Maybe we will be in the lucky position of laughing at ourselves when this is all over. I’d rather that happened than we lament not taking it seriously enough and not being proactive in trying to mitigate the damages.
Wouldn’t it be great to see less pollution and a population that survived both the pandemic and global warming? Even if you don’t believe they exist, what’s wrong with erring on the side of caution?
When, Deo volente, this all blows over I predict international conferences in far-flung exotic locales where the great and the good can jet in and discuss preventing future pandemics.
"if the underlying facts are solid, based on evidence.”
You give my your “solid” evidence on global warming, and when I ask questions, you explain why my criticisms are wrong, how about that?
“Unrelated to climate change, but here is my own ghoulish near futurism: in the coming month or two we will have a new division between the people who caught corona and survived (the Recovereds) and those that have not (the Vulnerables). The Recovereds will be able to eat at restaurants, and go to church, and ride on airplanes, and pick their noses and Vulnerables will need to wipe the world down with purell before opening each door. The Recovereds will have dinner parties that the Vulnerables are too scared to attend. Only the Recovereds will see movies at the theater.”
The recovered can celebrate their survival, nothing wrong with that. The Vulnerables can wait to see if a vaccine will be developed. The Dead will remain dead and celebrate their new home in Heaven, while the Recovered and the Vulnerable grieve their loss.
Warmists, even if you grant their premise, are crazy. Opposition to fracking, which has cut greenhouse emissions, which is why by some measures, the US has cut our emissions the most. It replaces coal, which has two ounces of mercury in every ton, and has half the carbon emissions of coal.
Nuclear? If the whole planet is really at risk, then the minor risk of nuclear with modern plants with far safer designs that don’t need to be sited near water, why aren’t they OK. Becuase warmies are in denial
"what’s wrong with erring on the side of caution?”
What’s wrong with denying the poor countries of the world energy they need? What’s wrong with slowing the economy to make us poorer in the future so we have less ability to manage the inevitable slings and arrows the universe has in store for us?
You guys make the same mistake as Pascal in his famous argument. What have I lost if I live as if Christianity were true and it wasn’t? I have lost the ability to live the one life I get in the whole time trajectory of the Universe as I choose. That’s not nothing.
A lot of people who reject the global warming orthodoxy are doing it out of denial. You see it in threads here when stupid arguments are often made against it. (There are no arguments made for it, just quotes of opinions pieces mostly. )But we have all heard about the blind squirrel and the nut. There is plenty of denial to go around on all sides. And a lot of anti capitalism, which global warming orthodoxy far too conveniently serves.
Hopefully the recovereds are helping with the new cases, and as the surge passes, it’s not such a scary disease. But I can easily imagine gatherings like those chicken pox parties, where the disease is purposely contracted, happening.
The difference here with the global warming deniers believing that we are indeed facing a pandemic is that they can see with their own eyes in real time how Covid19 has ripped through other countries. It’s evidence based, in your face. It’s real, they can see it with their own eyes. It’s urgent, it’s now. With global warming there’s still wiggle room, enough room to take comfort in denial, to suspect it’s purely political, it’s not urgent, it can’t be seen as clearly.
Go to that polder with the windmills in Holland if you think that rising sea levels is a civilization ending threat. They did that with hand tools. The richer our society is, the better we can handle stuff. You guys want to make us poor over your anxiety.
Inga,
The problem is many people have grafted their political and ideological concerns onto climate change. Romantic Primitivism, rationalism, placing hopes into political change for one’s group only (radical and utopian change), and fundamentally being anti science and anti human are just a start.
To my mind this movement involves a fundamental misreading of human nature (all the things for which you can criticize religion haven’t gone away, like narrow, magical thinking, in group out group dynamics, and punishing non-believers. Ignorance is always with us, including our own). From the outside, extinction rebellion looks like a cult. Maybe from the inside too.
This requires misreading politics because politics is more of a zero sum game with real winners and losers and constant bad actors and the good/bad in people asserting itself. It’s really hard to get reasonable and morally decent authority. Our constitution is constantly seen as an impediment to a crisis of doom by many environmentalists.
Many climate change actors claim the mantle actual science (Marxism is a political horror chamber but Marx claimed it was ‘scientific’) though even without the Marxism, human understanding and knowledge is relatively limited and has certain applications as with all things. Most peoples’ understanding is more to do with how to behave to be good and appear good, how to be liked and get a new job and follow the incentives around them.
Here are some ideas in response to your comment.
For many in the cities, this event may make a temporary change, but I imagine they will just forget all about it and go back to live as usual. Short memory spans and the inconvenience of actually having to THINK about what you are doing.
Everything will go back to normal within a short time. Less than a year.
Telecommuting will probably catch on though. If you can do that type of work and actually will DO the work, staying at home a few days a week is pretty nice. There will probably be less face to face meetings and conferences since they are easily accomplished and will save companies a ton of money by not having to fiance those.
For ourselves, personally....nothing has changed other than I wash my hands and have sanitized surfaces and we have sadly had to curtail some much needed trips to see family. Health and safety first.
My husband is still doing his work. Life is as usual.
Or what do you actually know when you think about such an abstract concept? What might you have gotten wrong and what right? What if you are wrong, do you have a means of handling such a possibility (hopes, reputation, identity etc.)?
If you’re not actually out doing science and data collection, interpretation, and nimble thinking, you might not understand the problems all that well (certainly my experience in a field), and if you’re getting similar feelings of immediate and special knowledge against enemies, or feeling more connected to those who politically think alike and more justified in your pre held beliefs and more settled in them, this a good sign of confirming your own bias.
“It seems unlikely to me that people will say, ‘You know, I loved not taking vacations. I learned staying at home with my kids is so rewarding!’”
While we were raising our three children, we didn't take vacations. We stayed home. This was a deliberate decision. It became clear that we were not temperamentally able to get along in a confined space. It always broke down into arguments, recriminations, and tears.
Instead, when we could, I would take one of the kids on a day trip, frequently to Washington D.C. They got dedicated time with Dad and saw interesting things.
The kids also had access to books and movies and could roam the yard much like I did. Since we didn't watch TV, we shut off a lot of the marketing to them as well.
As for the climate change hoax, my view started changing around 2000 when Scientific America magazine announced they banned Bjorn Lomborg from their columns. Lomborg believes in climate change, but that we should work to mitigate its effects rather than try to "cure" the earth. That was the first time I saw "wrongthink" being punished, and as the years went by, that has only increased in volume.
Meanwhile, idiots who claimed that the moon landing was faked would have their claims refuted through patient explanations.
Next, the release of the East Anglican emails showed that the temperature records were in terrible shape, a product of fantasy (one set of emails came from a researcher tasked with assembling them, and his discussion about them was eye-opening).
Then there was the NASA experiment in which they dropped thousands of buoys into the ocean to measure the temperature increase, only to not find them. (again, this was in the early 200s).
Year after year, I keep seeing the same thing: the data doesn't conform to the theory, so change the data. I see a lack of support for nuclear power. I see 2,000 private planes jetting to a conference on climate change (if you want to see heads explode, suggest banning private planes, something that less than 1% of the population use, but which dumps a huge amount into the atmosphere).
I mention all this, not really to change your mind (I don't have links to these things, for example), but to show you that my belief is not a knee-jerk reaction.
"With global warming there’s still wiggle room, “
In other words, we don’t know. There is a lot more than “wiggle room” BTW. But I see that you are just taking other peoples word for it, the people who run the media. You are clearly not reading the science directly. You clearly don’t understand the issues at any depth.
I love that “there’s still” bit as if the future can be known without the evidence to support the logic. The evidence that is coming in now, collation of decades of measurements, sea going drones that measure water temp to 2000 meters, etc, etc, etc, all suggest that the models have overstated the warming.
How much warming is a bad thing is a value judgement as well. Hurricanes have not increased, for example, since we have been keeping records. Warmies are in denial of that inarguable fact.
If the media had been more forthcoming about the obvious flaws in the hockey stick, which do require a little knowledge of statistics to see, but which can be explained simply by a person who understands them, and I will do that here for you if you ask, Inga, then they would be likely seeing less pushback on other stuff.
They flushed their own credibility down the toilet.
Global warming activists have generally advocated that people pack tightly into cities. This pandemic points out some of the potential harm in doing so.
LOL...you guys really can NOT keep on topic.
:-)
"But will the changes stick?"
File under "questions no one is asking".
Deadlines bring out the stupid in some people.
I love too how he warmies claim that it’s “big oil” who is putting out these arguments against the orthodoxy that basically any curious STEM undergraduate who applied his training to the evidence could see.
“global warming” is tagged, BTW DBQ, so it’s a free for all.
Human-caused global warming is a theory that does not fit the facts.
It is not science.
Global warming activists have generally advocated that people pack tightly into cities. This pandemic points out some of the potential harm in doing so.
Yes.
"It may impact my stock portfolio selection."
I'm surprised there isn't more analysis of this. Perhaps a boost for Amazon (until you realize how many people are handling your stuff in the process of delivering it to you). Restaurants seem to be taking the most brutal hit.
Then again, perhaps leisure travel would take a big hit if anyone manages to make virtual reality actually work well (esp. as a shared experience)? Why take a tour of Roman ruins when you could take a tour of ancient Rome in its heyday?
Friend went to Peter Lugers for dinner Saturday night, said restaurant had about half the usual customers.
Wow, you can get a seat there? Start the car!
"I'm surprised there isn't more analysis of this.”
Oh yeah, and did everybody forget that the Russians and the Saudis are currently conducting economic war on the US?
If you don't believe that "global warming/climate change" is a serious threat, why would you continue Covid-19 practices after the Covid-19 threat is gone? Well, you might find that you LIKE the Covid-19 practices -- not traveling, staying out of crowds, etc. -- and so you might continue them on their own merits, but that would have nothing to do with your wanting to fight climate change. If you DO believe that "global warming/climate change" is a serious threat, then you should have been following these practices before Covid-19 came one the scene, and you should continue doing so after Covid-19 is gone.
Let's see how long post-Covid-19 it takes before the global warming fanatics start flying around the world for their next international conference on the climate crisis.
The Godfather nailed with that comment.
I keep hearing out people who carry the virus and can infect others but not get sick themselves.
Are there any **confirmed** cases of this happening, such as a carrier husband infecting his wife, who comes down with a full-blown case of coronavirus while he remains OK?
Over at the Johns Hopkins site, the number of US deaths rose by only 4 from last night, to 57, with 2/3 still coming out of Washington state and California.
If these numbers are correct, we've gone in ten days from 0 to only 57 deaths. How can there be so few, if so many undetected cases are out there?
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
I'm asking in a spirit of inquiry, not making a claim that this is no biggie. I have a relative who's a Harvard post-doc in genetics, and she's worried sick.
If these numbers are correct, we've gone in ten days from 0 to only 57 deaths. How can there be so few, if so many undetected cases are out there?
Possibly because those undetected and un-reported cases are not very serious and people just soldier on, as we always do with a cold or mild flu case.
My brother and sister-in law both came down with "something" about 8 days ago. They were sick, sore throat at first, coughing, congested if they laid down, feverish and are now on the mend. No fever and less symptoms. Still staying home for a few more weeks to avoid passing it on...just in case.
Multiply them by 100. By 1000. Who knows.
To quote Mark Twain. There are lies. Damned lies. And statistics.
Russia and Saudi Arabia are going to economic war with each other. We're going to fill up the strategic reserve caverns with cheap oil. Let 'em fight it out for a while.
My brother and sister-in law both came down with "something" about 8 days ago.
My son had a few-day fever. He wasn't tested. That seems like a waste of resources to me.
Down on the watershed I work with a lot of warmists. I have two stock responses depending on the level of the discussion.
1. Wake me up when someone starts cattle ranching in Greenland.
2. It's the sun.
Because I know people who work in the hospital, I know there are two people in respiratory distress in isolation in the ICU who have tested negative for all known flu viruses waiting for results in just one hospital in Palm Beach County.
The effectiveness of the heat transport from the so-called "Greenhouse Effect" has been challenged with Nature's bitter denial and stubborn refusal to cooperate with models (i.e. hypotheses) and trans-scientific prognostications of sustainable climate change over a multidecadal period. The seals are suffering with the recurring rise of polar bear populations. Save a bird, a bat, whack a wind turbine.
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