How COVID19 Highlights LA’s Smog Issue
I realize lately it’s been corona virus overload, but there has been a myriad of unexpected small positive effects both on us as individuals and to our environment. We are becoming a more aware, sanitary society which is great. Since there are far fewer people commuting and congesting the roads, there have been less vehicles polluting our air, which is also great. This has led to a drastic improvement in air quality, thats not the shocking part though. The real kicker is how widespread these changes are but, more so, how quickly it all happened.
I like to spending time outside, and to be honest, I’m loving how crisp and clear the environment has become because of the reduction in pollution. From LA its often hard to make out where exactly the island of Catalina is, but in the past week views of the island have been crystal clear. It’s nice to take deeper breathes and not get hints of city smog.
Immediately I thought of the idea that the air can be this clean all the time if we all drove electric. Being a die hard petrol head, this has been the single most convincing moment where the potential benefits of having an electrically driven society have proven to be promising in a way that really makes a difference. It’s not that I don’t care about the environment. Personally, I’m terrified of humans destroying all of our forests, but the sheer intensity of the effects have never been so apparent, so quickly before.
Just a few days ago the air was so clean, right after it rained, I could have swore I was back in Oregon with that crisp clean mountain air. A few days before that, I was driving behind a friend who was piloting a Tesla Model 3. Not only was the car impressive and had no problem in the power/handling department, it was doing all the same fun canyon driving things I was, just without the toxic emissions. I thought about this for a long while and it messed with my octane stained mind. The idea that we are somewhat close infrastructure-wise to having the capacity to have electric actually go mainstream only adds attraction to driving an emissions free vehicle.
I’ve driven Teslas, and the Jaguar I-pace and I can see there is potential in these types of cars. The performance technically is there, it’s mostly a range and personality issue at this point. I’m just hoping engineers can inject some type of soul into them that is as profound as the effect they can have on our environment.