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The electric car as a talisman of false hope

jussipasanen.com

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Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#151

Post by agumonkey »

joking wrote: post #33
agumonkey wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part about it IMO is traffic light and stops. In a city, if you can drive around 20mph (25 maybe) uninterrupted, you get in most places very fast, very pleasantly and with fuel savings since you never slow down. Instead of a smooth flow, you get drivers that do: - high accelerations - nervous braking - idle engine running between 30 - 60 seconds (120 max?) Pure waste. Maybe I'm asking for a problem too comp…

Difficult for big vehicles, but changing the landscape and focusing more on personal mobility vehicles and a lot can be done (like the elevated roundabouts for bikes on Netherlands)

this is insane..

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elevated+roundabouts+for+bikes+on+...

I've read tons of articles about bikes in netherlands and how they design roundabouts. But never this.

It's a bit too much in terms of landscaping impact but it must be sooo lovely to bike..

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#152

Post by irq11 »

theworld572 wrote: post #137
Barrin92 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the alternative is to figure out how to change the very fundamental levers of the system in a way that enables change on a scale that matters. The individual consumption lens is going to accomplish nothing. If you could move an entire country from being car dependent to being largely car free, by pushing rapid urbanisation and transit and you put 20 car drivers onto a train or a bus, then we're starting to talk a…

So, while you sit there waiting for the perfect solution (which is completely unrealistic) people actively working on real solutions. > spending billions on something that gets you from 100 to 99.9 you're wasting time and energy that you don't have. Of course those numbers are just made up but they are also very far from reality. Solutions to climate change have actually been ranked in terms of total cost and total a…

Do you know what the #1, most significant thing any of us can do to reduce climate change? Have one fewer child.

Nothing else even comes close. It’s a simple fact. It’s easy to do. But nobody wants to do that.

It’s far less painful to pretend that we can keep the Titanic from sinking by making sure we sip our boat drinks from metal straws.

The point of the post is that we’re trying to consume our way out of a consumption problem, but predictably, a group of technology people want desperately to believe that if we just make the stuff we’re consuming better — with technology! — we’re helping.

To this end, it’s worth pointing out that the only item on that list that relates to family size is midway down, where it talks about family planning for the third world...something other people can do, so that you don’t have to change your life.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#153

Post by dragontamer »

whenanother wrote: post #134
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #79

Seems to me a lot of people are so attached to carculture that they can't even read the article properly. The author sees all sorts of good things about electric cars. I drive them myself. I love cars. But... The points the article makes about cars being part of a larger flawed system of urban and rural development are spot on. 'Self-driving' cars will only make this worse. Even just the excessive prevalence of hard-…

urban mass transit is never used by the wealthy. the last thing people with ill gotten gains want to do is to be around others who can identify them and see with their own eyes how much they’ve stolen. and they don’t want to be around their own kind as there’s no honor amongst thieves.

Senators use the DC Metro and Stock Market traders in NYC use their subway.

Big Subway systems in big cities are pretty famous for seeing executives in suits and celebrities sit in the same bus as beggars.

> ill gotten gains

That's... quite an assumption you're making there. Sure, some execs are assholes. But most true wealth is driven through cooperation.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#155

Post by localhost »

Barrin92 wrote: post #88
Denzel wrote: post #13

His argument distills to: solve it all-at-once, or don’t solve it at all. This is an uninteresting and uninspiring line of thinking that ignores the nature of socially dynamic systems which don’t exist in a world of instantaneous cause-and-effect. His conclusion states that electric cars make a difference, but they don’t make a real difference: “I do think they can slightly reduce unsustainability” but “by switching…

They don't make a real difference, and the author is correct about it. If you drive towards a wall and you're accelerating and all you're doing is slowing the rate of acceleration you're still going to run into the wall at terminal velocity. The author correctly points out that the total increase in car usage, mostly conventional engines is going to offset the small dent that electric cars make, and that cars themsel…

The real problem, as the author tangentially points out, is our over-reliance on cars to move us around. That’s due to the intentional choices that we have all made. If you look at the structure of suburban areas of cities in the US, you’ll immediately see that they are entirely designed the assumption of the existence of a personal car for YOU. You simply cannot get around without one.

A choice that I’m grappling with personally (as someone who lives in the suburbs in the US and owns two Teslas) is that I should really move somewhere more sustainable, i.e., more density so that I can get rid of my cars. That’s more difficult given family needs etc. If I didn’t have to factor others’ needs, I would have done this already.

This is the point that I think the author is trying to make. Changes at the margin aren’t addressing the real problem - they’re treating the symptom, not the disease.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#156

Post by academic_nimrod »

pas wrote: post #138
navigatesol wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the way to make the GHG-friendly stuff cheap is to tax the shit out of the GHG-positive things. Making everything more expensive is a political dead-end, and would exacerbate income inequality.

Who said everything? Taxing stuff that comes from large scale industrial destruction of the environment is completely different than everything. Plus all the carbon tax schemes start with direct rebates to the tax payers in equal parts, so those who consume more get less back than those who don't.

>Taxing stuff that comes from large scale industrial destruction of the environment is completely different than everything.

That's pretty much everything. At the very least, the commodities used to make everything are sourced from large industrial processes.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#157

Post by JoeAltmaier »

travisporter wrote: post #147
Barrin92 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the alternative is to figure out how to change the very fundamental levers of the system in a way that enables change on a scale that matters. The individual consumption lens is going to accomplish nothing. If you could move an entire country from being car dependent to being largely car free, by pushing rapid urbanisation and transit and you put 20 car drivers onto a train or a bus, then we're starting to talk a…

First, A lot of people buy Teslas because of looks and performance, or a linen bag because of ocean pollution. It may not reflect a desire to address climate change. Second, we can do both moonshots and paper straws. Why not encourage people finally pulling their head out of the sand?

Because, as indicated, it 'buys absolution' for the individual. That means they don't have to do anything else to feel they are contributing. Which shoots the moonshot in the foot.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#159

Post by benj111 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #88
Denzel wrote: post #13

His argument distills to: solve it all-at-once, or don’t solve it at all. This is an uninteresting and uninspiring line of thinking that ignores the nature of socially dynamic systems which don’t exist in a world of instantaneous cause-and-effect. His conclusion states that electric cars make a difference, but they don’t make a real difference: “I do think they can slightly reduce unsustainability” but “by switching…

They don't make a real difference, and the author is correct about it. If you drive towards a wall and you're accelerating and all you're doing is slowing the rate of acceleration you're still going to run into the wall at terminal velocity. The author correctly points out that the total increase in car usage, mostly conventional engines is going to offset the small dent that electric cars make, and that cars themsel…

"If you drive towards a wall and you're accelerating and all you're doing is slowing the rate of acceleration"

I don't like your metaphor. Individually this may be enough to slow down for that tight hair pin. As a society each additional electric car is someone putting the brakes on some massive train, others may still be mashing the accelerator, but eventually the balance will tip.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#160

Post by ZeroGravitas »

irq11 wrote: post #152
theworld572 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, while you sit there waiting for the perfect solution (which is completely unrealistic) people actively working on real solutions. > spending billions on something that gets you from 100 to 99.9 you're wasting time and energy that you don't have. Of course those numbers are just made up but they are also very far from reality. Solutions to climate change have actually been ranked in terms of total cost and total a…

Do you know what the #1, most significant thing any of us can do to reduce climate change? Have one fewer child. Nothing else even comes close. It’s a simple fact. It’s easy to do. But nobody wants to do that. It’s far less painful to pretend that we can keep the Titanic from sinking by making sure we sip our boat drinks from metal straws. The point of the post is that we’re trying to consume our way out of a consump…

Someone should go through the comments and collect together all the "perfect" solutions.

If we let the "ban cars" and the "ban children" folk fight it out then that frees up time for the "pragmatically improve things along many different dimensions, many of which would be beneficial even if we totally ignored climate change" folk to get on with things.

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