Covid 19 Sky
My wife and I are always up at 4am drinking our coffee and chatting for a bit....well my wife usually on fb...:-/ .... but anyway...once she goes to take her shower I always go crank my truck to warm the inside before I head out. I noticed something different this morning in the sky. It was a very clear sky and I noticed that there were so many stars! I went back in and got my wife to come out to look at it. I never traveled the world but in my little Tennessee world I don't think I've EVER seen that many stars in the sky!! After thinking for a bit we realized it must be due to far less pollution being put in the air. A lot of factories are shut down or either running on half the production. A lot less cars on the roads. I've definitely noticed way way less 18 wheelers on the road.
Anybody else that's noticed a lot more clearer sky?
That's fantastic. Reports from all over the world mention that the air is cleaner in big cities. Usually the amount of stars we see is a result of light pollution caused by city lights in metropolitan areas. I wouldn't be surprised if the air itself improves night sky viewing.
Yeah the city lights do cause light pollution making the skies too bright thus hiding many stars. But a significant factor in that is the amount of haze and pollutants in the air that the light can reflect off of. I hadnt thought about and now want to go look for myself but it would make sense that the stars are back like many years ago.
To learn. 1 year from now, will big city smog be right back where it was?
It probably will but people that moved into or grew up in smoggy areas and gave thought its just always been like this will now know its not true and will be more likely to support green initiatives.
To add to your list of things improving, I saw a report that wildlife, dolphins, reef fish, etc have reappeared in very significant numbers at Waikiki Beach and other popular spots in Hawaii such a Molokini crater.
The EV-1 was actually by General Motors and you could not buy one. They were only offered as a lease and when they did not prove to be popular GM recalled them and most were destroyed. Here in Michigan's U.P. the night sky has not changed. We get to see stars all of the time and the Northern Lights are frequently visible.
The EV-1 was actually by General Motors...Thanks for catching that. Did you watch the documentary on the EV1? If you did, what did you think?.
I spent about a third of my career in auto parts supplier companies and followed the industry fairly closely. I have seen documentaries on the EV-1, the latest an episode of Jay Leno's Garage on YouTube. My opinion is more of GM than the documentaries themselves. GM has a strong history of bringing product to market before it and/or the public is ready. The EV-1 was a niche vehicle, and range was poor, but battery technology was not as good. Not sure where the industry is going with electrics though. I have a hybrid Ford Escape for which I paid a premium and got no tax incentives. That car is worth about half compared to the same gasoline only powered vehicle.
Back in the mid 80's I worked on some of the tooling to put a touch screen into the dashboard. GM was going to install them in Buick Rivieras then cancelled the project which cancelled my job. At that time they were CRT's which would have taken up a lot more room that the current versions that are in nearly every vehicle.
It's been some months now. I'm looking outside at the snow that all afternoon and evening yesterday. This is quite early for a first dump of snow, I think.LA has some of the cleanest air of any city, for now. And these are just the most easily observable things. That means that things are changing at smaller and smaller scales, such that people might not notice now, but may see the result of later.So it got me wondering if this quite early snow is the result of something that happened months ago or not... such as the covid 19 skies. On the one hand, this winter is supposed to be a big one if you go by La Nia/El Nio cycles or the Farmer's Almanac, and 2020 has been knocking it out of the park so far -- a mighty winter in the northern hemisphere seems a fitting end to it. However, as shown by those same weather cycles, things are connected. Covid19 skies should be no exception to this. Thoughts?Nudeyooper. Would you say GM still acts too far ahead of the buying market? The only auto maker news I follow right now is Tesla, so I'm unaware of who else may be acting head of the curve.
I would think the early snow is a result of the fires in CA. Kind of like a mini nuclear winter, the smoke is block sunlight causing lower temps and a lot of particulate matter for moisture in the atmosphere to start collecting on.
Nudeyooper. Would you say GM still acts too far ahead of the buying market? The only auto maker news I follow right now is Tesla, so I'm unaware of who else may be acting head of the curve.
I don't think that it was ahead of the buying market as much as, "If you build it they will buy it as long as it does not cost too much." Most innovations have been introduced on the more expensive cars, and I believe that we are seeing that today as well. I think that price is keeping electric cars from our streets more than any other factor. When I bought my 2018 Ford Flex, there were features that I wanted but were only available on the highest trim line. I did not feel the extra $5,000 was worth it.
Where our cabin is in North Carolina we are pretty far away from the town of Murphy (by 8 miles) so at night after we've watched a beautiful sunset over the foothills of the Smoky Mountains off our back porch, it becomes really dark because of lack of street lights, etc... the stars come out and it's almost like you can touch them. And there are a zillion of them. What is really great is straight off of our deck, just above the hill across the way is the Big Dipper and it stands out like you wouldn't believe. It looks huge and the stars in it are brighter than the others. I've tried taking pictures but they never show well.
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