'Nature is taking back Venice': wildlife returns to tourist-free city | Hacker News Reader

'Nature is taking back Venice': wildlife returns to tourist-free city

theguardian.com

79 pointspseudolus41 comments

In Manhattan I've noticed a huge drop in the number of tourists in the past few days, but what's more interesting to me is the total number of people out and about in central park (and other parks) hasn't dropped much. It seems like most of the tourists you usually see were just replaced by locals. I suppose now that everyone is "working from home", they've got time to take walks in the park and enjoy the nice weather. I've also noticed fewer taxis/cars in general on the roads, which is quite nice.

This, of course, is strictly anecdotal observation, so take it with a grain of salt.

The first day of lockdown in Bologna, half the city ended up sunbathing in the local park. The city council was then forced to close parks and gardens.

Same in France

If people are keeping their distance, it shouldn't be a problem.

Their city parks are just not big enough to accommodate all those people at a safe distance. And of course couples and groups will never actually stay at a distance. Hence the order.

Couldn't cities just limit the number of people in the park, and presumably couples live together or are in contact anyway?

Do you really want to deploy even more already-at-risk police forces, just to count people in a park...? Let’s be real here - people are now forbidden from walking in the city except to get food, let alone stroll in the park.

This is silly. I’m just suggesting that people can be informed about the risks, and told to keep their distance. Any enforcement can be pretty light handed. Testing is the key regardless and focusing our efforts there could alleviate many downstream problems.

> Any enforcement can be pretty light handed.

From this statement I deduce you're not Italian. "Light handed enforcement" over there does not exist - people will not respect any rule unless they are somewhat certain that they'll be caught and punished for breaking it. Half-measures just don't work, they will be gamed out of existence in a few hours.

Something dumb that happened locally is, they shut down the public restrooms in the local parks, but not in the grocery stores. So now the local parks are as full as ever, but everybody is cramming in to the one open bathroom in the nearby store.

I am seeing the same thing in my neighborhood in Austin. Whole families out walking around together, people playing in the streets... my wife commented that it's like life slowed down and people are refocusing on just being together again. It's a nice side-effect of this whole situation.

Once this trouble is over everyone will realize how great life can be and work fewer hours, right? Right?

My commute is a lot shorter, which does free up more hours for me, but so far I'm working the same number of hours -- possibly more because it's easy for me to let work bleed over into non-business hours when I work from home.

Heh my neighborhood looks like night of the comet... no one out and about at all. No cars... a lone pedestrian every once in awhile.

What percentage are social distancing when they're in the parks? Where I am, outdoor recreation areas are busier than ever, but I estimate <5% are actively social distancing and it's common to see close proximity between strangers, sometimes brief, sometimes not. I initially thought I could keep my distance from others while in these areas, that my own vigilance would be adequate, but they're just too crowded and I worry about a momentary lapse in my defenses, especially if I go out on a regular basis.

I noticed this too. I'm on the upper east side and when I went out for a walk in the morning a lot of people are gathering in the park with their dogs like usual. I was running to the store yesterday and there were so many people on 1st Ave and hardly anyone was practicing the 6ft rule.

I want to go out today because its going to be 75 out, but I'm afraid that a lot of people will head out too. Its a tough situation.

There is an alternative timeline where tourism in Venice is prohibited or strictly restricted to a handful of people per day, and the city is fundamentally dead but used as a social livingroom for moneyed global elites. It would be utterly sad but probably very beautiful.

This crisis might help us rearrange our priorities a bit.

Venice is "dead" right now because the people who really live there can't compete with tourists for space. If you banned tourism then normal people would fill back in.

Are there places in the world that ban tourism?

A Japanese Shrine banned foreigners. https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3046010/jap...

> If you banned tourism then normal people would fill back in.

I doubt that. It is extremely annoying to live in Venice even before you factor the tourists in. Houses are small, old, and expensive to maintain; your ground floor will flood once a year or more; it's terrible to reach; it makes it hard to do simple "working-class" things like grocery shopping for a whole week, or going to a multiplex cinema; and you have the additional maintenance burden of looking after some sort of boat and its mooring. All that, and you're still living basically in a swamp - not the healthiest place.

There is a reason tourism became as big as it did: before, the city was effectively destitute. It was built over the commercial and military realities of a bygone era, and it now makes little real sense as a city. It survives because of tourism. That's why I said the alternative is keeping it as a global livingroom for very rich people: it's unrealistic to think it can flourish in any other way. The Italian government certainly cannot afford to do more for it than it already does.

I do hope that they will try to find a better compromise going forward, but I'm skeptical - already there has been talk of restricting cruises, particularly after recent incidents, but in the end it's a big industry bringing a lot of people into local businesses... Maybe the virus will solve this at the root by killing the cruise industry, who knows.

According to National Geographic, this story is false[1]. There were always swans in Burano, and the dolphins supposedly in Venice were in fact filmed elsewhere.

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/03/coronavir...

Having reduced my pollution by about 90% over the past 5 years according to online calculators and discovered the joy, community, and connection that comes with acting on my environmental values, I hope people experience simplicity and non-polluting behavior enough to continue it for the rest of their lives and create long-term systemic change.

I used to love flying and didn't think twice about packaging, ordering online, or buying food out of season. I prefer this way more than I can describe, though I did my best in my TEDx talks http://joshuaspodek.com/my-second-tedx-talk-what-everyone-ge..., and the old ways evoke disgust the way a polluted canal would look after seeing how clean they become if given a couple weeks.

This is actually the most hopeful thing I've read in a while. It makes me think that we're going to see a "Second Renaissance".

With the free time people have to think, and some deep introspection about their true worth as a wage slave, we'll see things change drastically after this is over.

This is possibly the best thing that could have happened to humanity.

How about you wait to see what the full effect is before saying that COVID-19 is possibly the best thing that could have happened to humanity

This is how I remember Venice ... from Tomb Raider 2 ;)

There are a lot more people out in nature at the moment. If this will lead to lasting changes? The lockdowns may be long enough to turn new behaviours into new habits.

I'd guess that habits are easily disrupted by major life changes, although that's mostly based off of my personal experience of trying to make 'good' habits and break 'bad' ones.

It's easy to break a bad habit I have when I'm traveling and easy to break my good habits when someone has come to visit or I have lots of obligations

It’s taking back the world.

This makes me...upset...and glad. As if it takes a virus to realise and change behaviour.

Edit: another upside was mentioned earlier in the CO2 drop. Will we in the future see politicans limiting number of aircrafts / year?

This water is not clean, only looks clean. To claim that the water is clean you would need to show chemical analysis, not photos of a cormorant in a sunny day. Sun reflection can make anything blue, same as computer colour correction.

There are several problems with this photos. Problems in the blue hues for example. Many of those photos show an unnatural (slightly milky) hue of blue. If they analyze this water I bet that they will discover traces of bleach and maybe some methylene

The seaweeds shown are also a bad, not good sign. Its population will increase in the next months probably. Is a chinese invasive species that shouldn't be in Venice.

So I'm afraid that Not, nature will not reconquest Venice in two weeks. This is publicity.

Urg !? Why such a "negative-nelly" ? You ran outa T.P ?

The water looks "more clear" - There !

:( why the negativity!? It's just clearer... Quote from the article: The apparent cleanliness of the water is not in fact due to a lack of pollution, said Davide Tagliapetra, an environmental researcher at the Institute of Marine Science. He told a local TV station that the reason is the absence of motorised transport, which normally churns up the muddy canal floor.

People know the water is still dirty. The point isn't that oh my it's been a week now it's perfect. The point is without large amounts of human waste the water is visibly better looking quality after a short time. And the fact it's amazing how much of an impact humans have on things.

Who cares if it is publicity, if it becomes a big things and raises awareness that's good.

Stop being so negative for no reason.

I'm grumpy. I know. The "stop being negative" mantra is a magical recipe to solve problems that rarely works. Understanding the problem is half of the solution.

> without large amounts of human waste

Venetia is directly connected with the mediterranean, a closed sea in a heavily populated and polluted area. Even if human waste will decrease in Venetia, the human waste created in Padua or Trieste will reach the coast and be redistributed again by tidal forces. Is unavoidable and nature will manage it.

So is probable that in a short term period the algae will rebloom to use all of the nutrients released by extraordinary coronavirus cleaning measures. I would not be surprised if a red tide event happens. Either that, or the sargassum will take all.

If Italians really want to improve nature in Venetia, they should be using this extraordinary grace period to do something about it. Something more than upload photos to instagram or twitter. Is an once in life opportunity.

>we in the future see politicans limiting number of aircrafts / year

I get that this is a limitation you agree with, but if you agree with the idea of politicians limiting things people want (flights and travel are things people want!), remember you won't get much sympathy when they will use it to limit something you want. Everything we do is somebody's pet cause.

So you don't think any limitation is reasonable?

I think the GP comment is saying that there’s just a one-dimensional slider, “allowed amount of government intervention”, and you don’t really get to decide what form that intervention takes.

It's almost as if this is the push we needed.

Limiting flights would be silly. That's an input, not an output. If we want to limit CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) then we need a global emissions tax or cap and trade system.

How effective is that, I am wondering? My concern is that any tax that ends up as a cost will affect passengers and higher prices. Will that stop people from flying more? I dont' know. I know too little about this.

But you know and what you think is silly may be effective and better in the long run. We need more 'silly' ideas in order to find a good one. In contrast, you can't have unlimited flights either, where the toughest and most powerful airline can fly the most just because they can cope with high taxes. That would only favour the big airlines.

We see that this virus has been really effective in lowering emissions. We're talking about changing human behavioural patterns deep within, I don't think taxes can create such a strong force.

What do you mean by trade system? Not sure I understand that.

Taxation is a very good way to internalize external cost like pollution.

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