Why can't we continue to work remotely?

 

As horrible as the Covid pandemic was, there were several valuable lessons learned before the vaccine was produced. One of those lessons pertains to the environment.

Because of quarantines, every person that possibly could worked remotely from home, and people shopped online, ordered online from restaurants, streamed entertainment.

Environmentally, this was an amazing boon in many ways: traffic jams were non-existent, there were no rush hours, and most importantly, smog cleared. Carbon emission levels dropped to record lows. 

And that should mean that employers and employees should figure out together how to continue to work remotely as much as possible.

I know there are economic impacts of working remotely, but surely, to help remove a global threat of pollution and its deadly impact on our planet, some compromises could be made.

Perhaps only commute to work one day a week. Imagine the energy and fuel that could be saved if buildings full of electric lights, computers, printers, and heating/air conditioning units could be shut down or dialed way back for most of the week?

Not to mention the fuel saved from all those vehicles wasting precious time sitting in traffic.

Working remotely should have been implemented decades ago, as soon as there were portable computers available to employees. Now is our chance. We've already managed working remotely for over a year. Let's not miss this window of opportunity, because the earth and all of the life co-mingling upon it desperately needs our attention.