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  • This is CNN 10. Give us 10 minutes, we'll get you up to speed on world events.

  • I'm Carl Azuz. Happy to see you this Thursday.

  • New Delhi, the capital of India, is usually near or at the top of the list when it comes to the world's most polluted cities.

  • But from March 23rd to April 13th of this year, it saw a 60 percent reduction in a certain type of pollution that it saw in the same period last year.

  • In the capital of South Korea, there was a 54 percent reduction in the pollutant.

  • Wuhan, China, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Los Angeles, California, all of these cities saw a double-digit improvement in air quality.

  • And this is all according to one report whose release was timed to coincide with Earth Day yesterday.

  • It looked at air quality information recorded from government monitoring stations in ten cities.

  • The cleaner air was a silver lining to the lockdowns of the coronavirus pandemic.

  • To date, the disease has been contracted by more than 2.5 million people around the world and researchers say almost seven percent of that number have died from COVID-19.

  • Global efforts to keep people away from each other have forced workers, students, and would be travelers to stay home.

  • That means there are fewer planes in the air, vehicles on the road, and factories in production.

  • On the plus side, scientists say social distancing has been effective in slowing down the spread of coronavirus.

  • On the minus side, millions of people are out of work, and many nation's economies have been badly damaged.

  • The U.S. government spokeswoman says, "The trends in cleaner air are temporary and that things will go back to the way they were when the coronavirus crisis has passed."

  • And researchers in the air quality report say keeping factories closed and cars off the road will not be a realistic solution to the world's pollution problems.

  • But the lockdowns and shutdowns have changed the way cities look and how they pollute.

  • This is what Chinese cities usually look like this time of year.

  • Thick smog blanketing the skyline, but this year there's something different in the air: blue skies.

  • In several Chinese cities, the air pollution has improved, especially Wuhan, the original epicenter of the deadly coronavirus.

  • The facemasks many Chinese used to wear to filter out polluted air, now worn to protect against the virus.

  • NASA and the European Space Agency released satellite images from January showing Wuhan's nitrogen dioxide levels.

  • And the dramatic drop in February after 11 million people there were quarantined.

  • CO2 emissions for the past four weeks are down by at least 25 percent because of the measures to contain the coronavirus.

  • For the world's biggest polluter, that could mean a drop of 200 million tons of carbon dioxide.

  • This is more dramatic than anything else that I've seen in terms of the impact on emissions.

  • But of course, the, the impact on people's lives and, ah, the economy was equally dramatic.

  • The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air says coal consumption at fired power stations saw a 36 percent drop compared to last year.

  • The research also shows carbon emissions from the aviation industry plunging due to falling demand and widespread travel restrictions.

  • But Greenpeace says improved environmental conditions may be temporary if China ramps up industrial output to boost the economy.

  • The political attention of the Chinese leaders will be distracted in the short term, ah, you know, to cut down the, uh, the outbreak of the coronavirus.

  • And that might distract them from other important social economic issues, including the need to fight climate change.

  • In neighboring Hong Kong, air quality has also improved as the virus triggered partial shutdown.

  • There's lots of people who work from home, and that's reduced the traffic volume and reduce the traffic congestion.

  • There's nothing business as usual about a global epidemic that's claimed thousands of lives.

  • But in the short term, this public health crisis for humans may actually be helping the environment.

  • Ivan Watson, CNN.

  • 10 Second Trivia.

  • Which of these island chains is located the farthest north?

  • Shetland Islands, Orkney Islands, Canary Islands, or Azores.

  • These island chains are listed in order from northern most to southernmost with the Shetlands as the answer.

  • Since we kicked off our partnership with CNN Travel last month, all of the places we've been too, virtually at least, have one thing in common.

  • They're inhabited.

  • That's not the case for all of the Shetland Islands though.

  • There are roughly 100 of them in this cold and windswept part of the Northern United Kingdom, and only about 15 of the islands have full-time residents.

  • A traveler has unintentionally become one because of the coronavirus crisis.

  • So he's going to tell you what it's like to be alone on Hildasay.

  • My name is Christian Lewis.

  • This is my companion, my friend Jet.

  • Currently at the moment we are locked down on an island called Hildasay, which is an uninhabited island just off the east coast of Shetland.

  • Hildasay is less than half a square mile in size, and Chris and Jet got stuck here during the coronavirus lockdown.

  • Lost on a journey to walk around the entire coastline of the UK, including all its islands.

  • To get back to the mainland, it's only about half an hour by small boat, but that stretch of sea is not the nicest.

  • So we really have to pick and choose our days when we get back.

  • They got help from some locals and were given the keys to the only house on the island.

  • Yes, the family got wind of the fact that we're staying on the island in a tent and said we'd be more than happy to give you the keys to the house if you want to go in.

  • I mean, they don't have electric or gas or anything like this. It's just very basic.

  • A lot of people have been commenting that wish they were on this island.

  • And it is just secret.

  • I couldn't be at a better place for a lockdown, let's be honest.

  • It was not as easy as I really think,

  • However, that's kind of what I like doing.

  • Chris gets his water delivered from a local fisherman called Victor, but hunts and forages for food on the island.

  • I can walk down now in half an hour, and I'll have a whole plate full of mussels if I want.

  • You know, so, I've got no worries there.

  • Entertainment though is sparse.

  • You have to find things to do to keep yourself occupied.

  • You know, I play marbles.

  • I always carry a tennis ball and just play catch or anything, you know.

  • But I also do other things.

  • I break it up.

  • I do like a Rocky style training regime where I use rocks to throw around and just, you know, just to get other body parts keeping loose.

  • By the time Chris was locked down on Hildasay, he'd already been walking the UK coastline for over two and a half years.

  • To be perfectly honest with you, I suffered really badly with anxiety and depression.

  • I'm ex-forces, and I've had a lot of help from an organization called SSAFA who are a veteran's charity.

  • So it really was an absolute no brainer to give back some of the stuff and make it its name, we're really well so far, so yeah, this is perfect.

  • The more I got into the journey, the more people heard about it.

  • People have been helping me with food.

  • They've been helping Jet with food.

  • It's really lovely to see the kindness that, you know, we're receiving.

  • I never expected any of this when I started.

  • I thought I was going to be living off bugs for the next two years.

  • I got Jet in a place called Irvin as I was coming through, so she didn't start the journey with me.

  • I started this on my own.

  • She's been with me for nearly two years now, and I don't think there's a better walk dog out there.

  • Chris plans to continue their journey once the lockdown is lifted.

  • But for now, he documents daily life on the small island with Jet.

  • There's something very spiritual about it, you know, I've learned a lot myself from camping around the UK.

  • It's very epic in many proportions.

  • The lockdown with coronavirus, I also see on social media a real change of people making videos with them doing stuff with their families, being creative.

  • I'm seeing more musicians out there, and we think we can say that this is coming out as a fact that people coming together.

  • And that's beautiful isn't it. It's just lush.

  • [10 out of 10]

  • Among the many things you don't want to see approaching your house, a 30-foot-tall wall of ice.

  • Of course, it's going to be more likely in places like this lakeside community in Minnesota.

  • This is an ice shove: it's what happens when ice starts to melt on the lake, and the wind shoves it towards the shoreline where it piles up.

  • It can damage homes and officials say is all you can do is hope and/or pray that the wind starts blowing in the other direction.

  • Because while people generally like rock walls, ice sculptures, and water features, it's not going to melt anyone's heart to see Elsa's magic "Frozen" in his backyard.

  • It may look "cool as ice" but it'd turn up the "heat" on anyone who wants to move to where a lake house doesn't become an "ice house."

  • I'm Carl Azuz. Valley High School has been commenting on our official YouTube channel.

  • So shout out to you viewers in Louisville, Kentucky.

  • Come on back tomorrow because Fridays are awesome on CNN 10.

This is CNN 10. Give us 10 minutes, we'll get you up to speed on world events.

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