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Comment by ElectronShak | Hacker News Reader

Another lockdown possibly ?

Lockdown was bliss for pollution here in London. Air smelled totally different.

We don’t want more lockdowns but we need to fix society so we don’t have to travel so much on a daily basis.

As a foreign tourist in london, london needs to fix its infrastructure. The amount of fine dust in the tubes is criminal.

Yeah tube dust is nasty. I’ll give you that. I barely ever use the tube now preferring to use overground trains and walk if possible.

A lot of people don’t seem to know that a lot of tube journeys can be done in a few minutes on foot.

Pandemic or no pandemic, wearing a high filtration respirator (N95/FFP2 mask at a minimum) on the tube, where air pollution levels regularly exceed Beijing and Delhi, is advisable. Also sensible on inexplicably still diesel choked busy London streets above ground.

Streets are getting considerably better thanks to ULEZ and all the horrible busses and taxis being replaced.

While I'm skeptical of the UK govts 2030 ban on selling combustion engine vehicles, I think going electric may the answer to London air quality.

Correct but only because people won’t be able to afford to replace their old cars with electric ones.

I can well believe it.

While I spent the pandemic in Berlin and didn’t notice much change here, 20 years ago I was in the UK and the daily walk past the A27 was radically improved by the truckers blockading the entire UK petrol supply in protest against fuel taxes.

'Climate lockdowns' are already an established conspiracy theory among the nuttier end of society, I really think the news industry has a moral responsibility to avoid alarmism because of its inherently destabilising effect on society.

Of course, alarmism is excellent at driving engagement and ad revenue so I might as well have asked for someone to write a program that solves the halting problem. I don't know how inventives can be put in place so that the news industry is an asset to society rather than a liability but I wish I did.

I’m already expecting the same protocol used for covid crisis (fear, restrictions, fines, divisiveness) will be once again applied for the impending climate crisis.

If used effectively, that may not be unwarranted...

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