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Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

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51–60 of 172 posts

Re: Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

#51
post #21

Perhaps tires can be made less toxic, but over all, we need to prioritize driving less. WFH means I put barely 3000 miles per year on my car. It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's the easiest win for the environment and it's right there for the taking.

As long as aggressively promoting WFH doesn't penalise people for whom this is not an option.

OK but then how many people are penalised by having to own a car?

Re: Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

#52
post #42

Perhaps tires can be made less toxic, but over all, we need to prioritize driving less. WFH means I put barely 3000 miles per year on my car. It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's the easiest win for the environment and it's right there for the taking.

Driving is an amazing. It allows everyone huge amounts of freedom in what they do and who they spend time with. Having lots of shops and workplaces near your home is great and should be encouraged, but we should try and find ways to keep the freedom of personal transportation and reduce the impact it has. Lots and lots of tunnels, better tires, electric cars use brakes much less and could get to almost zero, etc.

Cars are our worst invention, second only to agriculture.

Re: Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

#53

some links from Google Scholar https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=jenn... " a Ph.D. student, Haoqi Nina Zhao, suggested a new way to separate out chemicals that led to a prime suspect. But they couldn’t test it, because they didn’t know what it was. “It’s almost like you have a fingerprint,” Dr. Tian said. “But you really don’t know who this is, because in your database, this fingerprint doesn’t…

I don't understand how testing toxicity of chemicals, and their oxides, is not a standard part of allowing them in manufacture?..

There are hundreds of distinct chemical compounds in tires. This one in particular is very harmful to salmon. It's it harmful to bison? What about cicadas? It's a problem of scale, greed, perverse incentives, and capitalism.

I'm sure there's some amount of testing involved, and I'm also sure that Dow Chemical has made many lobbyists very wealthy in order to keep that testing as cheap and as minimal as possible.

Re: Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

#54
post #42

Perhaps tires can be made less toxic, but over all, we need to prioritize driving less. WFH means I put barely 3000 miles per year on my car. It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's the easiest win for the environment and it's right there for the taking.

Driving is an amazing. It allows everyone huge amounts of freedom in what they do and who they spend time with. Having lots of shops and workplaces near your home is great and should be encouraged, but we should try and find ways to keep the freedom of personal transportation and reduce the impact it has. Lots and lots of tunnels, better tires, electric cars use brakes much less and could get to almost zero, etc.

Yes, please may I have some more of the unmitigated freedom to pay a ballooning portion of household income toward a depreciating asset; the absolute pleasure of having to buy government-mandated insurance; the utter relief of participating in one of the most dangerous daily activities; the free choice of being able to salt the earth with CO2 emissions and tire particulate matter; and who can forget the ~socialized~ capitalist federal- and state-built roadways that cities are going bankrupt trying to keep up with funding.

Re: Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

#55
post #42

Perhaps tires can be made less toxic, but over all, we need to prioritize driving less. WFH means I put barely 3000 miles per year on my car. It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's the easiest win for the environment and it's right there for the taking.

Driving is an amazing. It allows everyone huge amounts of freedom in what they do and who they spend time with. Having lots of shops and workplaces near your home is great and should be encouraged, but we should try and find ways to keep the freedom of personal transportation and reduce the impact it has. Lots and lots of tunnels, better tires, electric cars use brakes much less and could get to almost zero, etc.

Driving is an amazing.

Your car brain got so excited about driving that it forgot basic grammar.

(It's okay, it happens to me too sometimes).

Re: Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

#56
post #36

I'd like to see a weight tax on vehicles. Lighter vehicles have less tire wear, so less pollution. They also require less energy to move, so less emissions. Plus lighter vehicles would improve pedestrian safety.

Interesting idea. Apparently road damage goes up with the 4th power of the weight (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law)

Really trucks are probably not paying their fair share in that regard.

I wonder how it would be implemented in practice given how variable vehicle weights are depending on how they are being used. Weigh stations like they use for trucks?

It might also be a solution for gas taxes being insufficient to maintain roads as vehicles transition to electric. And in concert with the much higher weight of electric vehicles due to batteries still sucking at power density (maybe it would increase interest in things like aluminium-air)

Re: Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

#57
post #36

I'd like to see a weight tax on vehicles. Lighter vehicles have less tire wear, so less pollution. They also require less energy to move, so less emissions. Plus lighter vehicles would improve pedestrian safety.

My canton in Switzerland uses this formula:

tax = k * P*0.9 / m*0.05

P: power in kW

m: weight in kg

k: currently 7.125

Minimizing tax means a small engine and a heavy car. (Though the tax difference between 1000 kg and 3000 kg is only 6%.) They also don't do subsidies for EVs, with the rationale that EVs affect road maintenance as much as other cars. Given that, the formula is backwards in terms of weight.

https://guide.autoscout24.ch/de/auto-unterhalt/verkehrsabgab...

Re: Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

#58
post #42

Perhaps tires can be made less toxic, but over all, we need to prioritize driving less. WFH means I put barely 3000 miles per year on my car. It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's the easiest win for the environment and it's right there for the taking.

Driving is an amazing. It allows everyone huge amounts of freedom in what they do and who they spend time with. Having lots of shops and workplaces near your home is great and should be encouraged, but we should try and find ways to keep the freedom of personal transportation and reduce the impact it has. Lots and lots of tunnels, better tires, electric cars use brakes much less and could get to almost zero, etc.

> freedom

Including the freedom to spend the equivalent of weeks every year stuck in traffic:

https://thecitypaperbogota.com/bogota/bogota-tops-tomtoms-gl...

Re: Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

#59
post #42

Perhaps tires can be made less toxic, but over all, we need to prioritize driving less. WFH means I put barely 3000 miles per year on my car. It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's the easiest win for the environment and it's right there for the taking.

Driving is an amazing. It allows everyone huge amounts of freedom in what they do and who they spend time with. Having lots of shops and workplaces near your home is great and should be encouraged, but we should try and find ways to keep the freedom of personal transportation and reduce the impact it has. Lots and lots of tunnels, better tires, electric cars use brakes much less and could get to almost zero, etc.

> Driving is an amazing.

As long as everyone isn't forced to do it at the same place at the same time.

Driving less goes a long way into making it more amazing.

Re: Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs

#60
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving is an amazing. It allows everyone huge amounts of freedom in what they do and who they spend time with. Having lots of shops and workplaces near your home is great and should be encouraged, but we should try and find ways to keep the freedom of personal transportation and reduce the impact it has. Lots and lots of tunnels, better tires, electric cars use brakes much less and could get to almost zero, etc.

> freedom Including the freedom to spend the equivalent of weeks every year stuck in traffic: https://thecitypaperbogota.com/bogota/bogota-tops-tomtoms-gl...

Travel time is travel time, you would have a similar tally on the train/bus/walking. This isn't really the best argument against cars because people buy cars because it's a massive improvement on "waiting for the bus time."
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