The electric car as a talisman of false hope • Hacker News Board

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#291

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #252

irq11 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you equate “having fewer children” to “killing yourself”, which is transparently incorrect, not to mention tasteless. However, the responses to this simple fact continue to be enlightening: people would rather commit all sorts of tortured fallacies of reasoning than change their lifestyles in any meaningful way.

> Only if you equate “having fewer children” to “killing yourself”, which is transparently incorrect, not to mention tasteless. It's the same result. You're just choosing it for yourself instead of your parents having chosen for you, which only seems fair -- I know I'd rather be the one to choose for myself. But the point is that the choice, in either case, is not worth the cost when there are better alternatives. If…

Killing a living, breathing person is nowhere near choosing to not make a new one, morally, practically, legally or in any other sense.

Edit: choosing not to have children (and I don't think that's a reasonable way to expect people to try and address climate change) is not population reduction. It's population control, if you like. You are making sure that the population doesn't keep increasing. Killing people on the other hand is population reduction. They're really not the same thing at all.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#292

Post by notJim » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

theworld572 wrote: post #137

Barrin92 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So, while you sit there waiting for the perfect solution (which is completely unrealistic) people actively working on real solutions. > spending billions on something that gets you from 100 to 99.9 you're wasting time and energy that you don't have. Of course those numbers are just made up but they are also very far from reality. Solutions to climate change have actually been ranked in terms of total cost and total a…

> So, while you sit there waiting for the perfect solution (which is completely unrealistic) people actively working on real solutions.

This isn't true. No one is arguing we should sit around and wait for a perfect solution, and that's a really dishonest framing of this article.

The argument is that electric cars are over-weighted as a solution, and it's one I see all the time. Not only that, but it directly conflicts with other goals. In the US, cities and states are still investing in expanding highway and car-based infrastructure at a time when we desperately need to be moving away from car-centric cities. Infrastructure is expensive and time-consuming to build, so putting resources into car-centric infrastructure means that a) we will be stuck with car-centric cities for a long time, and b) there will be less money for non-car infrastructure. If instead, we stopped building new car infrastructure and poured our efforts into non-car infrastructure, we'd be much better off.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#293

Post by YeGoblynQueenne » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #174

Denzel wrote: post #13

His 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…

The really irritating thing about the 'solve it all at once' argument is that electric cars, in a very real way, are the keystone that lets the entire arch support itself. Renewable energy sources are already the cheapest ways of generating electricity at certain times , the trouble is that those aren't always when the electricity is needed. Energy storage makes investment in renewables much more profitable. The prob…

I think you and other commenters are responding to the "solve it all at once argument" without it being put forward by the article.

The article does not claim that electric cards do not reduce emissions sufficiently to solve the problem of climate change all at once. It claims that electric cars increase emissions and that increasing emissions exacerbates the problem of climate change.

It's not saying that electric cars are only a partial solution. It's saying that they are part of the problem.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#294

Post by WorldMaker » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #180

NullPrefix wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>brake discs Regenerative braking does not have this problem. Although the tyre problem remain.

Tires are a far more significant pollution source than brakes.

But still a far less significant pollution source than diesel (especially) and gas exhaust.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#295

Post by Mirioron » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

llsf wrote: post #270

Mirioron wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His argument distills to: solve it all-at-once, or don’t solve it at all. I disagree. I think the argument that's being made is rather that switching to electric cars isn't enough, but people focus on it so heavily that people feel as though switching to an electric car is saving the planet. The problem here is that it's not enough and due to how hyped up electric cars are there won't be enough will left to tackle…

So the problem is the "hype" around electric cars, not the electric car itself. Nobody said "buy an electric car, and you are done, the planet would be saved". And if some people do believe that, then it is an education issue, not an electric car issue. A bit tired of people shooting for perfection and berating those who actually try to make a difference, even so slightly. Maybe a more effective solution would be to…

>Nobody said "buy an electric car, and you are done, the planet would be saved". And if some people do believe that, then it is an education issue, not an electric car issue.

It's irrelevant what people said. What matters is what people believe.

>A bit tired of people shooting for perfection and berating those who actually try to make a difference, even so slightly.

The problem here is that you only have a limited amount of attention from people to spend on trying to improve climate change. If you misspend it, even when your proposed solution helps, you won't deal with the problem.

Imagine you're in a desert with a jug of water. You know the direction you have to go in to get to a city and be saved. You can choose to walk or crawl. If you pick the option to crawl then you're moving in the right direction, but you'll die of thirst before you get there, because you have a limited amount of water. People's attention and will are like that jug of water. You need to make the best of it. Electric cars are great, but people need to understand that that isn't all that needs to be done.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#296

Post by notJim » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 6:28 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #195

localhost wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem, as the author tangentially points out, is our over-reliance on cars to move us around. That’s due to the intentional choices that we have all made. If you look at the structure of suburban areas of cities in the US, you’ll immediately see that they are entirely designed the assumption of the existence of a personal car for YOU. You simply cannot get around without one. A choice that I’m grappling wi…

> The real problem, as the author tangentially points out, is our over-reliance on cars to move us around. And the author fails to explain why (in the context of climate change) that's actually a problem. Suburban areas have a disproportionate carbon footprint specifically because of ICE-powered cars being required to go anywhere; if those ICE cars become electric cars, and that electricity comes from solar/wind/nucl…

> Hell, at that point the suburban areas could actually be net carbon sinks, given there's more room for big carbon-devouring trees in between single-family/duplex/quadruplex homes than there typically is between skyscrapers packed as tightly as possible (as is the norm in even small cities, let alone large ones).

This is absurd. If people move away from the suburbs, the trees will still be there, and more if we get into reforestation. Building a suburb generally involves cutting down trees. Humans living in a smaller area of the planet leaves more room for trees.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#297

Post by NohatCoder » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 6:38 PM UTC

api wrote: post #248

Denzel wrote: post #13

His 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…

He also perpetuates what I call abstinence based environmentalism. It won't work for the same reason abstinence based sex ed won't work. You are not going to guilt trip people into being poor. It's failing hardest in the developing world because do you really expect people in Africa, South America, and Asia to listen to rich Westerners guilt trip them into not doing what those same rich Westerners are doing? "To save…

"abstinence based environmentalism", that right there is a perfect term, thank you!

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#298

Post by notJim » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

zip1234 wrote: post #164

michaelt wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not mutually exclusive. Well, you can only spend a given dollar once. So if for example the government spends $$$$ to put an EV charging point in every street light, that's $$$$ they didn't spend making busses more appealing.

Except the government does even need to do that. The government could actually make money by leasing spaces/taking a cut of revenue to put chargers and letting private industry install them and manage them.

There are problems there though, because adding parking spaces makes driving more desirable for both EVs and non-EVs, and parking spaces tend to compete with bike lines in US cities. And as long as US cities remain car centric, having parking be expensive enough to be a deterrent to driving (or a major revenue source) is going to be a 3rd rail for local politicians.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#299

Post by notJim » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #37

eptcyka wrote: post #21

Earlier 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…

This is a textbook example of false dilemma fallacy. Replacing ICE cars with electric cars doesn't preclude other environmental measures, and in fact, people who worry about their car's emissions tend to be people who worry about other environmental issues as well.

But continuing to have car-centric cities, and investing more into car-centric infrastructure, as many cities and states continue to do, is a real dilemma. Government funds are limited, especially in the current era, and space in cities is limited, too. We should be converting interstates to high-speed rail, and cheap/free city parking into bike lanes, but if our plan to tackle climate change is all about electric cars, none of that stuff is going to happen.

In a sense, this conversation mirrors the myopia the article talks about, because people who disagree with it are defending their individual consumption choices, while ignoring the broader social and policy connections that surround them.

Re: The electric car as a talisman of false hope

#300

Post by notJim » Fri, Aug 16, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

whenanother wrote: post #134

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #79

Seems to me a lot of people are so attached to carculture that they can't even read the article properly. The author sees all sorts of good things about electric cars. I drive them myself. I love cars. But... The points the article makes about cars being part of a larger flawed system of urban and rural development are spot on. 'Self-driving' cars will only make this worse. Even just the excessive prevalence of hard-…

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.

There's probably some truth to this, although it's not as absolute as you say.

The obvious solution is higher taxes for the wealthy. Wealthy people have higher climate impacts across the board, from increased meat consumption to larger houses, to first class flights and private jets.