by Andrey Dashkov
Casey Research
After the COVID-19 lockdowns began in March of last year, a strange thing happened.
People started sharing before-and-after photos of skylines around the world, showing the dramatic difference in air quality, like the ones below.
The photo on the left shows a smoggy Los Angeles skyline pre-COVID. The one on the right was taken in April 2020, about a month after California issued stay-at-home orders – the first state in the U.S. to do so.
The difference is staggering. With fewer people going outdoors… traveling… commuting to work each day… pollution dropped, and the air became visibly cleaner.
And it wasn’t just Los Angeles. Across the world, energy plummeted amid the lockdowns. According to the International Energy Agency, global energy demand fell 2% in 2020.