Return to office is ‘dead,’ Stanford economist says. Here’s why::The share of workers being called back to the office has flatlined, suggesting remote work is an entrenched feature of the U.S. labor market.

  • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    What gets me is that in this mad dash to address climate change, WFH is a valuable tool to reduce emissions from commuting. I remember driving during the early lockdowns and thinking it would be possible to skateboard down the freeway. You’d think Democrats would be encouraging WFH as a part of their green initiatives, but I can see that having donors in real estate and fossil fuels might run counter to that.

    • AeroLemming@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      According to CNN, “passenger vehicles contribute 29% of total US greenhouse gas emissions,” and I reckon the vast majority of that is probably from people commuting. If we could cut vehicle emissions by just 1/3 (number I pulled out of my ass) by having people work remote when they can, it would be a fucking massive 10% decrease in overall emissions.

      • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        I believe it. I had meant to say in the previous comment that during the initial lockdowns and driving on the empty freeways, the Southern California skies were the absolute clearest I had ever seen them. While I’m sure industry is the largest emissions contributor, factories and plants are localized, whereas cars are absolutely everywhere and a huge cause of general smog. It’s bonkers that we have the means to reduce our emissions significantly by allowing and encouraging WFH, but muh profits and control.

    • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
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      11 months ago

      I’ve been saying this forever. We don’t need new tech to be developed or rolled out, we don’t need to move everyone to a city and take a train, we don’t need everyone to buy a new electric car, we just need to take away the reason 1/3 or more of driving occurs. And we already proved we can do it. It’s insane to not make that part of the climate goals.

      This compounds too - less traffic means less need to add more lanes, or run more trains, or pave more parking lots, etc… So basically “bad, unnecessary” construction can go away. From what I can tell, almost no one actually wants a larger highway except because of traffic. But most of the traffic is commuters. We might have enough capacity (if you remove most commuters) for a very very long time to handle tourists, delivery trucks, and emergency services…