GatewayRedbirds.com

Honestly - we need to change the mindset of a lot of businesses.

I could do my entire job from home - that would eliminate 350 miles of travel per week times 48 weeks = 16,800 less miles I need to drive every year.

But, my company thinks for workers to be productive, we need to be stuck in an office all day so they can watch us.

What am I, 12?

(Even in the office I waste way too much time on GRB.)

Imagine how much driving and fuel usage can be saved if we allow more people to work from home?

I think your post is a great idea, more people should work from home. It helps not just in the miles you save but also alleviating congestion which adds to even more carbon being used.

I'm going to make a pretty big leap here but we really need to explore a universal basic income. There are so many people who have jobs that really aren't needed. Scripts and robots can replace a pretty huge portion of our workforce and if all those people didn't have to go to work everyday it would take a lot of stress off the environment.

It's not just the carbon foot print either that would matter. Let's say you got a significant number of people that live in areas were water supply is tight, like the southwest. What is even a quarter of those people that didn't have to go to work everyday didn't have to shower for work? I'm sure it's negligible on a small scale but if you have thousands of people who didn't need that morning coffee on the way to work that would surely move the needle on water usage as well. Seems like it would certainly help with a lot of our environmental issues if people could work from home, work less, or not at all.

The Uber "independent contractor" model where you work kind of your own schedule and work as much/little as you want would be way more attractive if we also had Medicare for All, affordable housing, affordable/free child care and other benefits like that in place. But since all those things are so expensive and all are paid out of pocket, it just doesn't work right now for most people.

Of course Uber also wants to totally automate their business....but here I'm just saying that "independent contractor" employment model could work in other fields if we had these other things in place.

Life would be great if we didn't have to work in order to survive.

For many, work from home is fine and good, but I mostly hate it for me personally. Too much isolation and no separation of work from the rest of life.

With 4 daughters and a Wife around the house, sometimes I need an escape, so going in to the office is a good thing...

Working from home also means we only need one car.

I thought this thread was maybe most appropriate to put this good read about the affects of robotics and AI on the labor market, specifically the industrial Midwest and the South. Lot's of good stuff in here. I think AOC is right to make a jobs program part of the Green New Deal. Technological advance does grow the economic pie, but absent re distributive govt. intervention those gains will only go to the people already at the top.

The Robots Have Descended on Trump Country