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Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

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Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#601

Post by michaelteter »

matsemann wrote: post #529
michaelteter wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why so many people are cautious about "EVs to save us all" Certainly no, that's not why people are "cautious". They are hesitant about EVs because they fear running out of "gas" mid-trip. Most people don't give a shit about anything except their plans and needs (and not necessarily unreasonbly so). You can just look around at what kinds of cars most people purchase to reason what their priorities are (or are…

Range anxiety was solved years ago. I don't know of anyone with an EV (which is most car owners here in Norway) that actually feel this is a problem. You can charge at basically every gas station in the country, and new cars have 400km ++ range.

Millions of new cars are sold yearly in the US. It's a huge market. It's also a huge country, with some long distances between some cities.

Assuming charging is available at most gas stations on US highways, it's still not attractive to most people to have to wait 30 minutes (or whatever) for a fast charge to allow them to continue their journey.

Norway might be a good use case, but currently the US is not a good use case (except in town). So US buyers will still need one gasoline car for road trips.

Personally I'd prefer passenger train infrastructure over millions of electric cars. Equal or more cars is, as the article notes, still a bad thing.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#602

Post by bobthepanda »

nerdponx wrote: post #564
bobthepanda wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a legitimate lack, partially because the federal guidelines for holding a CDL rule out anyone who uses marijuana.

I somehow doubt that there is truly a lack of people willing to train to obtain a CDL who also don't use marijuana. Hell, I don't use marijuana and I'd gladly do it if I needed a job.

We know at the very least that marijuana requirements are taking out people who already have CDLs. https://www.marijuanamoment.net/tens-of-thousands-of-trucker...

> Data from DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) shows that, since 2020, more than 100,000 truckers tested positive for cannabis, as Transport Topics first reported. Marijuana was by far the most common banned substance to come up in the drug screenings.

> Overall, there have been approximately 166,000 people who tested positive for some prohibited substance since 2020, according to a report that FMCSA’s Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse published last week. There is an option for those truckers to enter a “return-to-work” process that would require another drug test; however, the data shows that a large fraction of people are not taking the opportunity. About 91,000 of those 166,000 truckers who didn’t pass the drug screening have not enrolled in the process yet.

> This would be problematic from an economic standpoint in any industry, but it’s especially troubling in the transportation sector, which has been facing a significant labor shortage.

Trucking is not the best industry to be in and there are a lot of problems, but dismissing people who smoke weed, at all, is adding fuel to the fire.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#603

Post by wizofaus »

gdilla wrote: post #575
jeromegv wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we also built our society to make the car more convenient. Can’t remember the ratio but the amount of parking space available per car is absolutely insane. That means a relatively cheap access to put your giant car almost anywhere you go. Most cities are built around that idea and that makes other form of transportations almost impractical. So yes the car is convenient but we also built many things to make it mor…

800 parking spots per car in the US.

Perhaps if you accept that freeways function as parking spots during major traffic jams...

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#604

Post by badtension »

margalabargala wrote: post #600
badtension wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the joke but let me just mention that wood campfire is one of the worst solutions (if done at scale). This may sound idealistic (like the other comments mentioned) but I think we just have to reduce our energy footprint and then many solutions will be green again. One great example (some will say absurd and impractical) is just using energy whenever it is available, with minimum storage. That means cooking, hea…

What sort of onboarding path do you see to get a majority of the energy consumers (both the populace and industry) willing to accept this? How could the public will to make that change be created? This feels like about as useful a solution as saying "the US could balance their budget by simply disbanding their military". Would it work if implemented? Sure. Would the resulting world be arguably better than before? Qui…

Dynamic energy pricing with smart power-hungry appliances controlled by the energy producer would be a great start.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#605

Post by wizofaus »

sokoloff wrote: post #557
rangledangle wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are only useful because America foolishly built and rebuilt around cars, instead of humans. There were even places that functioned perfectly fine with transit and walking, destroyed and replaced with infrastructure for cars. Undoing our mistake is always an option.

If it can be demonstrated to most voters to be a mistake, presenting the full plan to undo and replace it with something better would be a good next step.

When was the plan for what we have now ever presented to voters? Clearly it's not something that can be "undone" all in one go - but every day governments make decisions about what infrastructure to build/repair/extend, how much parking should be available and how much to charge for it, and how much to continue ensuring the current car-based economy is well supported/subsidized. If those decisions gradually moved towards "let's not assume cars are the be all and end all", we could still slowly unboil the frog as it were.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#607

Post by downrightmike »

rootusrootus wrote: post #481
downrightmike wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only real solution is mandating light and heavy rail. California was hit hard by the car companies that bought out the rail and got replaced it with roads. And now we have even more reason to use rail everywhere we can. Maybe after the nimby boomers die off, we can actually made things make sense.

Why do you think younger property owners are actually going to be any more interested in giving up their land to the government to build more rail lines? I get that it's fun to blame the boomers for everything, but it sounds more like you're complaining about human nature.

Mostly because the younger generation wants the world to be habitable for the foreseeable future. But ultimately light rail and cars are not mutually exclusive. Property doesn't have to be lost to add it. Heavy rail can largely go parallel to current lines and we can add additional rail lines rather than yet another lane to highways. If you look around, rail + highways is already done and has been for decades, it is just poorly mismanaged to maximize RR profits. I posit that nearly none of the Semi trucks out there are only solving the last mile problem, most of it is interstate transit, which is best served by rail. In places that are upstream of water sources, they need to be heavily in rail to prevent the pollution we're talking about here.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#608

Post by sokoloff »

wizofaus wrote: post #605
sokoloff wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it can be demonstrated to most voters to be a mistake, presenting the full plan to undo and replace it with something better would be a good next step.

When was the plan for what we have now ever presented to voters? Clearly it's not something that can be "undone" all in one go - but every day governments make decisions about what infrastructure to build/repair/extend, how much parking should be available and how much to charge for it, and how much to continue ensuring the current car-based economy is well supported/subsidized. If those decisions gradually moved tow…

It never was. But as a voter, it's what outside my window right now and what I understand.

If you want to make wholesale changes quickly, you probably need the support of voters.

Nobody put 240V center-tapped, 60 Hz AC residential electricity to the voters either, but if you wanted to change it, you're probably going to need a strategy and a communications campaign to explain why and how.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#609

Post by fsckboy »

Tostino wrote: post #436
maest wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the modern automobile is a wonder of transport speed, comfort, and convenience. It's also heavily subsidised and its cost does not include a signficant chunk of externalities. Also, this has been discussed to death, but a large chunk of car usage can be replaced by other modes of transportation. However, that transition requires upfront infrastructural investment. Sadly, arguments like yours ensure that inv…

Think of how differently the 20th century would have played out if we didn't have such a demand for oil.

energy is what replaces human labor and also makes things possible that human labor can't even provide. Our energy desires in the future will grow even higher. It's not a defect in human nature, it's a defect in the laws of thermodynamics.

Stop fighting it, you're wasting energy.

Re: Tire dust makes up the majority of ocean microplastics

#610

Post by fsckboy »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #545
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example if you google "why did Japan enter WW2" the summary answer is: > "Faced with severe shortages of oil .. Japan decided to attack the United States and British forces in Asia and seize the resources of Southeast Asia."

It’s the other way around. They lost access to oil because they entered WW2. Had they not decided to invade Indochina (and China before that) US wouldn’t have embargoed oil exports to Japan.

and while we're on the subject, we didn't go to war with Iraq (either time) for oil. Iraq wanted to sell us oil, and Iraqi oil on the international market would have driven oil prices lower for us. The reasons lie elsewhere.

It's OK to be against the Iraq war or all war, but it's not OK (or at least accurate) to say it was so we could get their oil, pretty much the exact opposite.

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