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You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Maddie Sifai here with NPR Climate Correspondent Lauren Summer Hey Lauren.

Hey Maddie. And Science reporter Rebecca Hersher.

Hey Maddie. Do you remember March?

Yeah, Becky, of course I do. It was last month.

Do you remember what was going on outside in March?

Yeah, I mean, I remember looking at it, the outside, I looked at it.

And what did you see while you were looking at it?

I feel like this is a weird trap, but birds, fresh air, not a lot of traffic, bingo.

From a shockingly smog-free New Delhi and India fresh air to unusually clear waters in the canals of Venice,

the world is suddenly learning what can happen if humans stop polluting the environment.

In fact, if you listen to the news back in the beginning of the pandemic in the US,

with more of a sting inside, not the roads, you probably heard it was the freshest,

cleanest air ever. Cities around the globe are reporting less air pollution.

We're also seeing wild animals roam in very unexpected places.

Right. Nature is healing Lauren as they say and keep saying.

Yeah, and it is true that traffic plummeted in March. I mean, it dropped around 40%.

So you get rid of car traffic, you get clean air. Is that it? Because like, I don't know if we need a

whole episode for that, you too. Yeah, actually, that's it. That's the whole thing.

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