As people across the globe stay home to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus (新冠病毒), the air has cleaned up, although temporarily. Smog stopped choking New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world, and India's getting views of sights not seen in decades.
Nitrogen dioxide (二氧化氮) pollution in the northeastern United States is down 30%. Rome air pollution levels from mid-March to mid-April were down 49% from a year ago. Stars seem more visible at night.
People are also noticing animals in places and at times they don't usually. Wolves have wandered along downtown Chicago's Michigan Avenue and near San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. A lion walked leisurely on the streets of Santiago, Chile. Goats took over a town in Wales. In India, already daring wildlife has become bolder with hungry monkeys entering homes and opening refrigerators to look for food.
When people stay home, Earth becomes cleaner and wilder.
"It is giving us this quite extraordinary insight into just how much of a mess we humans are making of our beautiful planet," says conservation scientist Stuart Pimm of Duke University. "This is giving us an opportunity to magically see how much better it can be."
Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, gathered scientists to assess the ecological changes happening with so much of humanity without leaving home. Scientists, stuck at home like the rest of us, say they are eager to explore unexpected changes in weeds, insects, weather patterns, noise, and light pollution. Italy's government is working on an ocean adventure to explore sea changes from the lack of people.
"In many ways we destroyed the Earth system violently and now we see what Earth's response is," Mr. Field says.
