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Indian Drivers Get Around Traffic Restrictions By Buying More Cars, Causing More Traffic
India is basically one big traffic jam which a billion people happen to live in. Desperate to reduce the number of vehicles on the streets (and the shit they pump into the air), Delhi's authorities decided to adopt an idea used by other cities around the world: the odd-even scheme. As in, cars with plates ending in odd numbers and cars with plates ending in even numbers can only go out on alternating days.
NOMAD/Wikimedia CommonsIf you're a pedestrian, then it depends on your number of buttcheeks.
In theory, this should force people to either carpool or suck it up and use public transportation. But in practice, it just made them buy more cars to get around the rule. According to a study by an Indian university, air pollution went down in Delhi the first time the rule was tried, but on the second attempt it increased by 23%. Not coincidentally, the number of cars on the roads went up too. There's no way the authorities could have known the scheme would have this effect ... unless they'd looked at Mexico City, where precisely this had already happened.
In Mexico, CO2 levels dropped by 11% at first, but they eventually went up by 13% as people rushed to buy more cars. And like in India, these second vehicles were mostly used ones, because they're cheaper and you know what number you're getting on the plate. But they also tend to be older, shittier, and pollute more. Despite this, India intends to continue using the odd-even scheme periodically. So we hope everybody enjoyed the free trial period for "breathing." It has now expired.
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Georgia's Bounty On Boars Causes The Boar Population To Go Up
Out-of-control boars are a serious international problem, as we've been shouting from the rooftops for some time now. In Fort Benning, Georgia, packs of feral pigs go around chowing on vegetation, animals, and basically anything else in their path. In an attempt to put an end to their reign of terror, Fort Benning not only gave hunters the go-ahead to kill these bastards, but also offered a $40 reward per hunted pig. That sounds like the basis for the bloodiest episode of The Mandalorian yet.
20th Century Fox"Uh-oh."