It's too bad that countries only consider things like this to address a crisis in fuel costs. Why not enact measures like this to curb the pollution and CO2? I guess it says a lot about what humanity truly values.

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lizknope 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

We saw how much less pollution there was during the pandemic

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/04/8110190...

I worked from home but a few times I needed to go to my parents house during what used to be rush hour. Less than 5% of normal traffic and fuel demand dropped so much that prices were lower.

My job went hybrid in 2022 and then return to office full time last year. Everyone hates it. It's a waste of time and resources.

Less pollution, less traffic means we don't need to use tax revenue to expand roads and less wear and tear means less repairs.

Take it one step further and give tax breaks to businesses that let employees work from home and close physical offices. Then this means less new office construction which can be used for housing to help the housing crisis. It's a win win for everyone except control freak managers.

	▲	devsda 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Some believe that few organizations are actually real-estate businesses masquerading as tech, restaurant or other types. For those kind of business having full occupancy is more important than worker productivity.

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01100011 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because the economic activity which generates pollution and CO2 also raises standards of living and provides for the needs of their societies?

Let me guess, you live in the West and don't need to worry about your family's basic needs being met?

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teachrdan 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Global climate change will make much of the world barely habitable, and devastate crop yields. Those living outside "the West" will far and away be the most adversely affected. Reducing CO2 emissions is an urgent global priority.

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logicchains 2 hours ago | parent [-]

>Global climate change will make much of the world barely habitable, and devastate crop yields

There's no empirical basis for that statement, the people behind it have been making similar apocalyptic predictions for decades that never materialized, their models have no predictive power.

	▲	conception 5 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Most high-quality climate models have been if anything overly conservative in their predictions and things have been going at a much accelerated rate. So which doomsday models can you point to that have not materialized?
	▲	karmakurtisaani an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[flagged]

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marcosdumay 7 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> don't need to worry about your family's basic needs being met?

So... Office workers commuting every day create food to put on people's table?

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a456463 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No it doesn't. That economoic activity when done from home, raises their local neighborhoods now where mom and pop businesses can thrive instead of competing in a costly rental market based on scarcity.

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harperlee 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One is an immediate impact in your pocket, the other one has an impact lag that you count in years/decades.

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toomuchtodo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Optimizing performance management and labor cost controls is more important to those making these decisions than climate change. Misaligned incentives.

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keybored 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can’t collapse countries and humans down to four sentences and conclude that’s what they value. Do you want to analyze the problem or throw quips at the wall?

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thewhitetulip 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Leave the petro-billionaires alone!" Seems to be the driving force

Imagine if the world had aggressively invested in renewables at any time in the past ten years!

	▲	mrguyorama 26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Cheap and efficient solar power didn't seem to require any actual breakthroughs or real investment. Maybe better power electronics for inverters and things? Batteries are a real issue but storage could have been totally ignored for a while. So, maybe when Carter put those (thermal) solar collectors on the White House we should have thrown a hundred billion dollars at solar panel work and had abundant solar power decades ago. But no, Carter was "weak" so we had to instead elect the guy who ignored AIDS because he hated gay people, pushed absurd drug policy, put us in bed with the middle east, and started the process of removing taxes from any rich person and racking up national debt for stupid reasons. Why was Carter "weak"? Well you see, Iran was a huge Bad Guy that we needed to stop! Oh.

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pphysch 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Why not enact measures like this to curb the pollution and CO2?

It does seem like a glaring contradiction, but it's actually not. In the West, at least, climate rhetoric is a tool primarily to discipline and control the masses through fear, with actual concern for the climate a distant secondary factor. This is why those elites can cry crocodile tears for the environment while also riding on private jets to private islands and staying mum about intentional environmental disasters caused in the ongoing wars (which they support, of course).

In the current fuel crisis, mandatory WFH is also an attempt to manage populations through controlled demand-destruction, which avoids more volatile forms of demand-destruction that result in unrest, like not being able to afford food.

From an (cynical) governance perspective, there is no contradiction here.