The Best Place for Everyone Right Now is in Their Homes

Quarantine began on March 15, 2020, for the United States. Life has been pretty up and down since then. The lows include: running out of toilet paper, resources, and patience. While the highs include: the release of the new hit show “Tiger King”, naps becoming a regular occurrence, and hair dye sales skyrocketing. Times are pretty crazy right now, but in all of the craziness, there has been some good. Pollution is down for the first time in what seems like forever, and the thought arises: what if we just stayed inside… forever?

According to Fox News, President Trump just released a 3 phase plan for “reopening America”. It seems fairly straight forward, and very much focused on getting everyone back to work. This all seems very logical. The stock market is in the toilet and over 21 million Americans out of work. Everyone seems to be itching to get back to “normal”. The thing is “normal” has definitely changed over the past month. Even though people are actively wanting to leave their homes, some are becoming quite comfortable with quarantine. The relaxed atmosphere, the quiet streets, the ability to stay in pajamas all day long: quarantine seems to be living like a king on some days. Since everyone has been inside keeping up on COVID-19 aka coronavirus aka Lady Rona, some incredible things have been happening in nature.

In an article by Time Magazine, scientists were excited about the extreme climate change that has been happening because, for once, it has been a good thing. Carbon dioxide in China has been cut down by a fourth of its normal emissions. Paula Koelemeijer, a seismologist in London, has a miniature seismometer in her apartment which has been showing a decrease in rattling on the surface of the Earth. This is incredible! A global pandemic that has killed thousands of people is saving lives that were in danger due to extreme toxic emissions because people have not been able to leave their homes. The environment has been a hot topic with words like climate change and impending doom causing a lot of talk on the internet and political stage. One of the most incredible effects of the virus has been more swans returning to their natural state along with cleaner water to the Venetian canals. With the incredible results that have been created with quarantine concerning the environment, governments are being asked: What are you going to do to keep this progress? How can this progress be kept? How can the Earth continually become clean with humanity’s carbon footprint looming? The only option is for quarantine to continue.

Humanity has not stopped causing Earth harm until now. For the first time in years, L.A. residents are seeing a clear sky. Smog which has loitered over massive cities for years is losing its throne to clean air. Clean air is finally returning, but air pollution is not the only problem that humanity has caused. Noise pollution, according to the Environmental Pollution Centers, is “regular exposure to elevated sound levels that may lead to adverse effects in humans or other living organisms.” Noise pollution ranges from industrial sounds to something as simple as music which is louder than 70 dB. Noise pollution does not seem like a problem as imminent as air pollution, but it has a dangerous effect on people. A few side effects of noise pollution are dementia, psychological dysfunctions, child development, and various cardiovascular dysfunctions. The plants and animals are not causing this problem: humanity is. With quarantine, noise pollution has been down since large industrial machinery is not being used, buses are not running, and cars are not being driven. All of these modern inventions have caused massive harm to the Earth and fellow people in it. The only situation that will completely eradicate/decrease noise pollution is to continue with quarantine.

If quarantine did continue, people would be driving less, carbon emissions will continue to decrease, and noise pollution will all but plummet. People are the problem. All of the modern inventions we have begun to heavily rely on have taken hard hits against the Earth. Earth has been crying out for help for years, and nobody listened. Those who tried to warn the masses were mocked and scoffed at for their ridiculous ideas. Now, everyone is in quarantine realizing all the good that is happening when humanity is no longer in the picture. Governments have a duty: no, it is more than that, they have a responsibility to the people they are leading to not only keep this unprecedented progress but to continue it for all of the future generations to come. The only plausible answer is to continue quarantine until the Earth is healed. As hard as it may sound to make this happen, it would only take a few strategic steps to change the infrastructure from draining the Earth to life-giving. For the sake of this argument, the focus will be on changing America’s infrastructure, not the whole world.

The first step in cleaning up America’s carbon footprint is to adapt as many jobs as possible to being online. With fewer people driving to a job each day, carbon emissions will drop and noise pollution as well since there will be less travel sound. This may sound impossible for some jobs, but for the majority of people, they can go completely online. For those who work in bars, restaurants, and churches, they will most likely lose their job and source of income. This is a sad reality, but the Earth must be healed. Even though some people will lose their jobs, it will be alright because they can just use their time while out of work to learn a new skill which is more useful in the new cleaner America. Step one will take the most time because America is built on capitalism, but no matter. Clean air must be prioritized over people needing a source of income. People are able to live without a job but not without clean air.

Step two is to make a program for all of the Americans who have lost their job due to the shift to completely working online. Of course, this would all be on an online college program teaching skills in SEO, search engine optimization, Wordpress, etc. Colleges have already proven that they are able to completely go online so there is no need to address that piece in society. After all of the unemployed are enrolled in new learning programs, the government will have to make sure that everyone has access to the internet and a laptop so taxes will be elevated for a little bit of time to compensate for the loss of workers and need for various resources.

Step three would be to enable law enforcement to implement strict social distancing rules. No more than 10 people in one place at a time, and anyone who breaks the law is subject to a fine. The fine would have to be substantial enough that the average person would not risk it and jail time is not an option due to the lack of space to keep in line with the social distancing code.

Step Four would be to begin rationing at the grocery stores with daily delivery times for each person/family. This would further decrease carbon and noise pollution. It would take a while for people to adjust to their freedoms being taken and lives being completely turned upside down, but people are resilient.

Quarantine has changed the world. It has wrecked the American economy, but it has shown great promise in healing the Earth which has been almost utterly destroyed. With normal already being a rocky place, there is no time like the present to try and continue to heal more than just humanity. People will lose almost their entire sense of dignity and reality, but hey the Earth will be healed. Even though we will not be able to go outside and enjoy what is healing we will be able to look at it through windows waiting for the Earth to be completely healed and quarantine to be slowly lifted in phases.