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Jeff Bezos climate change plan unveiled – buy 100k electric vans.

cnbc.com

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Re: Jeff Bezos climate change plan unveiled – buy 100k electric vans.

#41

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

martythemaniak wrote: post #16
Arubis wrote: post #6

I'm glad to see that there's deliberate movement in this direction. However, it's a little dismaying that the headline is implying that we can address climate change by Consuming More Stuff; that's how we got into this mess in the first place.

Climate change is not about consuming less. It is about not taking carbon from the ground and putting it in the atmosphere.

Large quantities of carbon are taken from the ground and added to the atmosphere in the manufacture, transportation, sale, use, and disposal of consumer products.

Re: Jeff Bezos climate change plan unveiled – buy 100k electric vans.

#42

Post by giacaglia »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #12

This is a big deal because it increases the critical mass towards electrification of transportation, even moreso than the carbon offset by the vans. Right now early adopters are okay with ChargePoint and tolerating some uncertainty with the next charge, but we need 1) more renewable grid input and 2) much more "refueling" infrastructure (public 40 and 80 amp charging).

Amazon clearly wants Rivian to succeed: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/rivian-announces-700-million...

:-)

Re: Jeff Bezos climate change plan unveiled – buy 100k electric vans.

#43

Post by organsnyder »

derekp7 wrote: post #33
mumblemumble wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unstated major premise: Buying electric vans is a step in the right direction in the first place. I'm thinking here of the lessons we've been learning recently about recycling: It would appear that we now need to come to terms with the possibility that recycling has done far more harm than good, by making it easier to justify excessive packaging waste while at the same time mostly only giving consumers the impression…

How would increasing the delivery time reduce the amount of gas it takes to get an item to my doorstep? Considering that the items ship from a warehouse about 15 miles from my house. I suppose that if an occasional item ships from across the country, then it would be less impactful to go by truck for 5 days, so if that is the case then any item that falls under that category could have a selection item on the checkou…

Batching deliveries could result in massive energy savings. Right now, Amazon's vans tend to hop around neighborhoods (at least that's what their delivery tracker shows me). If deliveries were batched, the delivery density would be much higher, reducing the distance a single vehicle would have to travel to empty a full load of packages.

Re: Jeff Bezos climate change plan unveiled – buy 100k electric vans.

#44

Post by mabbo »

codingdave wrote: post #36

While I applaud any move towards decreasing negative impacts our our environment, I also encourage people to take advantage of Amazon's option to pick a delivery day and get all your stuff at once. Even without that option, Amazon has some work to do on their route planning - I should never need 3 different deliveries from 3 different drivers on the same day, and that has occurred at my house.

Consider this: shipping is free for you. Sending more trucks to deliver packages many times per day is annoying for you, but it's expensive for Amazon.

That's a huge incentive to do that as rarely as possible.

Re: Jeff Bezos climate change plan unveiled – buy 100k electric vans.

#46

Post by BlackRing »

Jill_the_Pill wrote: post #41
martythemaniak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change is not about consuming less. It is about not taking carbon from the ground and putting it in the atmosphere.

Large quantities of carbon are taken from the ground and added to the atmosphere in the manufacture, transportation, sale, use, and disposal of consumer products.

Which is going to happen regardless.

What would you rather they consume, an internal combustion engine that spits out a deadly exhaust or an electric vehicle that uses power, presumably from a nuclear or less toxic fuel source?

Re: Jeff Bezos climate change plan unveiled – buy 100k electric vans.

#47

Post by floatrock »

mrpopo wrote: post #40
dimitar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some consumption is good, i.e. replacing and old appliance or a car with a more efficient one, or you can buy a video game on Steam rather than driving to a picnic. It is not always apparent what behaviour is the most energy-wasteful. For example airplanes emit tons of CO2, but if the same 300 people in a plane drove the same distance it could be much worse. Advanced economies have grown their GDPs, but have also red…

> For example airplanes emit tons of CO2, but if the same 300 people in a plane drove the same distance it could be much worse. Technically true, however airplanes provoke a rebound effect. By making travel so efficient and fast, it makes people travel more. If airplanes didn't exist all people would simply travel less, not drive more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Re: Jeff Bezos climate change plan unveiled – buy 100k electric vans.

#48

Post by TeMPOraL »

noonespecial wrote: post #17
Arubis wrote: post #6

I'm glad to see that there's deliberate movement in this direction. However, it's a little dismaying that the headline is implying that we can address climate change by Consuming More Stuff; that's how we got into this mess in the first place.

While I largely agree with you, decades on it seems that if the message factors down to "quick, everybody stop doing stuff" , it's hard to get political traction. Every step in the right direction is a good one. Perfect is the enemy of good.

I'd put a stronger argument: if everyone suddenly stopped doing stuff, the global economy would collapse, most people would starve to death, all our technology would rot and disappear in couple decades, and the few survivors would live with medieval-level technology on a thoroughly broken planet with no chance of regaining any advanced tools for thousands, or tens of thousands of years (as all dense energy sources accessible without XXI-century tech have been used up).

There is an often unmentioned extra constraint on dealing with climate change: we have to do it in a way that doesn't break technological civilization.

Re: Jeff Bezos climate change plan unveiled – buy 100k electric vans.

#49

Post by lenova »

mrpopo wrote: post #40
dimitar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some consumption is good, i.e. replacing and old appliance or a car with a more efficient one, or you can buy a video game on Steam rather than driving to a picnic. It is not always apparent what behaviour is the most energy-wasteful. For example airplanes emit tons of CO2, but if the same 300 people in a plane drove the same distance it could be much worse. Advanced economies have grown their GDPs, but have also red…

> For example airplanes emit tons of CO2, but if the same 300 people in a plane drove the same distance it could be much worse. Technically true, however airplanes provoke a rebound effect. By making travel so efficient and fast, it makes people travel more. If airplanes didn't exist all people would simply travel less, not drive more.

And not to be pedantic, but when the above poster said "or you can buy a video game on Steam rather than driving to a picnic", that discounts the amount of times the game developers had to drive to work to create said game. As well, replacing an old appliance or car isn't a straight-forward net savings, you need to take into account the materials harvested and factories that need to be built to produce those new items.

Re: Jeff Bezos climate change plan unveiled – buy 100k electric vans.

#50

Post by throwaway5752 »

giacaglia wrote: post #42
throwaway5752 wrote: post #12

This is a big deal because it increases the critical mass towards electrification of transportation, even moreso than the carbon offset by the vans. Right now early adopters are okay with ChargePoint and tolerating some uncertainty with the next charge, but we need 1) more renewable grid input and 2) much more "refueling" infrastructure (public 40 and 80 amp charging).

Amazon clearly wants Rivian to succeed: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/rivian-announces-700-million... :-)

And that is fine, in my opinion. I don't think it's self dealing. If you think climate change is an urgent issue, you fund solutions. When you fund solutions, you choose the best option. When you're ready to act on it, you choose the best option.
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