Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know where you live but everything is too far apart in American suburbs. How you would fix that without tearing it all down? And it's totally impractical for transporting a family around. Road tripping. Visiting far away family. Day at the lake or beach. Going camping. How do you convince people to give all of that up and just be content with whatever is 15min away.
Residents of American suburbs should have to pay for their full costs (infrastructure and maintenance, environmental, healthcare, services, ...), and if many people can't afford it, we should do a universal cash subsidy to every resident at the federal level to make up the difference so the transition is not so damaging, then let people decide if they really want to spend that whole amount on paying the actual costs…
Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
301–310 of 635 posts
Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
#302I worked on a phd for 4 years looking into this problem indirectly and for a decade at Ohio State they have had working solutions to the tire dust issue but it is IMPOSSIBLE to get funding. A Billion dollar industry and NO ONE cares about cleaning it up if it means increasing costs by 5% or more. It has been WELL KNOWN for 50 years! We are basically aerosolizing carbon in MASSIVE amounts right where we live and work.…
If I want to buy a good-for-the environment tire, what should I buy? I don’t care about the price unless it’s insane
Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s probably mostly soot from the exhaust. I’m few blocks away to railroad (caltrain) and the windows facing the tracks have same black residue
Cars have fairly clean tailpipes these days. Older Diesel train engines still in service are disgusting. Construction vehicles are also pretty bad. The worst are large ocean going vessels burning bunker fuel in port which is illegal but very cheap.
Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
#304Has anyone here ever lived near a freeway or even moderately busy road? I made the mistake of renting next to the freeway. Noise was perfectly tolerable, but I could not use my back porch, because after just a few weeks, everything had a fine coating of black dust. I could not keep my windows open in the summer. I was certainly breathing this vile shit the entire time I lived there. This doesn't surprise me in the le…
That's why so many people are cautious about "EVs to save us all", to put it mildly. We are so focused on climate change and greenhouse gases that we do not see a lot of other issues and may exacerbate some of them in the process of decarbonisation.
Nothing is a silver bullet but I'll be much happier when we're done with ICE noise and exhaust.
Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every car already has a way to track its own mileage without requiring GPS
Not every state has inspections. So the infrastructure to check/validate odometer readings is lacking. Maybe some yearly assertion of mileage and random selection rate yearly would suffice.
Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just let’s please not require a government-approved mileage tracking device to make sure that each vehicle is charged it’s fair share. That’s one really nice property of gas taxes they will be hard to replace without going full dystopia, and there is a significant contingent that doesn’t give a shit about the privacy and security implications.
Every car already has a way to track its own mileage without requiring GPS
Not that I'm advocating a Orwellian tracking system be installed. Just saying I can see how existing systems could be argued against.
Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this is not an inherent property of cars. It is only true because we invested all our transit dollars in highways. Cars are not inherently better and roads are not free. If we invest more in public transit we can reduce our need for cars.
I'd like to know why you think cars are not inherently better as it seems very obvious that they are. That is why people overwhelmingly prefer to use them.
Cars as the main method of transportation are obviously not good. They're too inefficient, no matter how you look at them. Manufacturing, infrastructure requirements, footprint per person, energy use, impact on human health and the environment. Cars suck.
People use whatever's most convenient and that's realistically going to be whatever the government has invested in the most.
The more car dependent a society, the more degenerate it is. This is hard to understand due to how car-infested most of the world is. Watch some videos by the Not Just Bikes channel on youtube [1] to see what the world could look like instead. Here's some poignant examples (direct links): [2][3][4][5].
And here's an obscure video that exemplifies what's wrong with car culture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWi4gHm6pjQ. This is what a brainwashed society thinks like.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes
[2]: https://youtu.be/muPcHs-E4qc?t=464
[3]: https://youtu.be/AOc8ASeHYNw?t=204
Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
#308Has anyone here ever lived near a freeway or even moderately busy road? I made the mistake of renting next to the freeway. Noise was perfectly tolerable, but I could not use my back porch, because after just a few weeks, everything had a fine coating of black dust. I could not keep my windows open in the summer. I was certainly breathing this vile shit the entire time I lived there. This doesn't surprise me in the le…
Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
#309This is a strong a warning as any for people not to get too hang up on greenhouse gas emissions as the holy grail of sustainability. It creates the wrong mindset. What we have drifted into is a tech supported civilization that is covering the planet from corner to corner with myriad of footprints (emissions, particulate and chemical pollution of all types, habitat alteration or destruction etc). The story of ozon lay…
> Bold ideas are welcome. Burrying heads in the sand not an option. It's simple. It's more mobility options, especially safe active transportation. EVs are still cars. It's a change in the margin. What is really needed is people biking, walking for their daily errands instead of using a car. As for the safe part, it does not require anything special. The aspirational world of the future will be made real with bollard…
Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics
#310Has anyone here ever lived near a freeway or even moderately busy road? I made the mistake of renting next to the freeway. Noise was perfectly tolerable, but I could not use my back porch, because after just a few weeks, everything had a fine coating of black dust. I could not keep my windows open in the summer. I was certainly breathing this vile shit the entire time I lived there. This doesn't surprise me in the le…