So we transition to EV's and we change power to non-fossil fuels. It's not hard it just costs money and requires some sacrifice. I'm on 100% renewable now. If I wasn't already, I'd happily pay twice what I pay now to ensure I was at least on non-fossil if not on renewable.
The electric car as a talisman of false hope
181–190 of 338 posts
Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope
#182Once we get self driving, there could be far fewer cars per person. If you amortize that part of the bar chart of emissions which comes from producing the vehicle and divide it by, say, 20, and continue to develop new solar and wind farms, the BEV looks really amazing compared to current non-self driving ICE cars.
Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think he's making the morally dubious jump to say that corporate profits are immoral.
Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If you could move an entire country from being car dependent to being largely car free, by pushing rapid urbanisation and transit While these are the “right” solutions, they occur over decades. Planning for any rail line, then constructing, takes over a decade. Even in the environmentalist San Francisco Bay Area. Even bus lines. Try a google of “Van Ness BRT” to get a sense for how slow infrastructure projects work.…
>Planning for any rail line, then constructing, takes over a decade. Even in the environmentalist San Francisco Bay Area. Try a google of “Van Ness BRT” to get a sense for how slow infrastructure projects work. That's a uniquely American problem. Maybe America should fix itself so it doesn't take so long to build infrastructure.
Well unfortunately, fixing America will take far more time and effort than even outright abolishing ICEs and transitioning every automobile-driving American to electric vehicles (let alone let the market do its thing, given that the advantages of ICE relative to electric are rapidly evaporating).
So, you know, why not push for the latter in the meantime while we work toward the former?
Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
and your are mistaking the working class with people with wealth.
Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bicycles are great, but there is no reason all cars need to weigh two tons or have room for 5-7 passengers.
Actually, there is: if you get in a collision with a large vehicle in a really tiny one, you're going to die. So you need a larger vehicle that can make a crash survivable. Basically, it's an arms race.
Clearly fewer folks are buying into that. The day of the 1970's 25-foot land cruiser are waning. The Ford Focus is now king.
Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
So whats the alternative? Do nothing at all? If you have $100k left to pay on your mortgage, and somebody offers you $5k towards the mortgage are you going to tell them they're offering you a "false hope because you'd still have $95k left to pay"? EDIT: This is also known as the "nirvana fallacy": because the solution is not perfect - that means it is worthless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy
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…
OK, you changed my mind. I still think buying an electric car is better than doing nothing, but I also see the emphasis on individual consumer decisions as a serious distraction.
Sure, electric cars and other consumer decisions could maybe make a 10% contribution in solving the problem, but these individualist approaches are getting the bulk of the attention.
I feel there should be a name for this phenomenon: When the solution that has a ~10% effect gets ~99% of the attention, whereas solutions that solve ~90% of the problem get ~1% of the attention.
It's like a Pareto law of inversion of contribution versus attention.
It should go without saying that this effect is everywhere in technology, especially software development. You're going to encounter it today at work.
Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
The argument isn't that doing _something_ is bad, it's that the amount of effort people put into obtaining their shiny non-paleolithic-compost-fueled-but-rather-battery-powered 2 tonne sledgehammers would be better spent changing policies that operate on organizational rather than individual units. How about we just stop buying as much shit from halfway across the world? Global trade requires us to spend stupid amoun…
I paid net $22K for a new 2015 Nissan LEAF (after $10K in combined government incentives). You could have gotten the base model (with resistance heat only) for under $20K, but that’s a fairly poor choice for New England year ‘round usage.
Even at 22k, that is a lot for most people. Online it says the LEAF can go 150 miles for around $4.80. Your payment would be around $375ish a month with at least $100 for insurance (probably more).
Why would most people do that when they can get a used car cheaper or keep driving what they have. It is just expensive (i am not saying i would not like a Nissian LEAF, that would be sweet).
I guess i see people buying EV's and ask why the rest of the world is not (i know you are not asking this, but a lot of comments i read are) when we cannot afford them.
Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You're assuming that they're indeed not doing anything else. I strongly doubt that's an accurate assumption.
Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope
#190His 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…
People that buy electric cars to help the environment or become vegetarian, are probably more likely to make additional changes in their life, and persuade others to make changes as well, to reduce emissions. I'm not sure about that, some of my neighbours seem to think that giving up plastic bags is enough to offset their annual holiday in Bali. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licensing
Which is why a carbon price is so essential. Even if all the information was readily available to consumers, its too complex to be able to interpret.