Electric cars don’t solve every problem with private vehicle ownership but they’re certainly a step in the right direction. Most EVs average an equivalent of more than 100mpg versus most ICEs, which are around 30-40. You can also power an EV with renewable resources. This isn’t possible with ICEs (yes, I know you can power certain diesels with biofuel, but it’s horribly inefficient).
“Buying a new car is worse than keeping an old one” is an incredibly situational phrase that has a million exceptions for so many people.
Buying a new car is worse than keeping an old one
Also, what do you think happens to your car when you replace it with an electric car? Do most people just drive their old cars into the ocean when they upgrade?
“Buying a new car is worse than keeping an old one” is an incredibly situational phrase that has a million exceptions for so many people.
Yeah, but this still holds a lot of water. More often than not people buy a new car to have a new car or even worse they buy one specificcally because they are misguidedly trying to lessen their carbon footprint.
More often than not people buy a new car […] trying to lessen their carbon footprint.
This seems very hard to believe.
Try looking it up. That might help
Just because I wanted to be sure I am not being mistaken for some reason I just googled a couple different search terms for motivations to buy a new car.
None of the results is even close to confirming your ludicrous quote from above.
So again I am baffled by how confidently wrong you keep on posting here.
People aren’t just buying new cars for fun in a recession. The point is people will need to buy a new car at some point. Either because they now need their own car or their old one isn’t viable. At that point, choosing an electric car is a step in the right direction. That’s why this post is stupid, it’s acting like buying an electric car is just a frivolous purchase and not acknowledgeding that when someone needs to buy a car there is a choice to be made.
My frustration comes from the fact that hybrids exist and are not used nearly as enough as they should (all cars should have been mandated as hybrids a decade ago) and this would reduce the downsides of electric car production.
I’m not defending ICEs here, I just think the overall environmental credentials of electric cars at this point in time isn’t as good as hybrids.
I fully expect this to change in the future but I’ve got entire fleets of vehicles which are less than 5 years old being replaced by electric and that makes no sense.
Also cars generally are just a terrible solution to mass transport. We already have the most environmentally friendly option known to man. Bicycles and trains.
Edit: for further information on hybrid vs electric see this analysis:
Yes, which is why I’m downvoting you.
I’m huge into going green, going mass transit, and everything else, however, most people cannot fit into one worldview, which is why this is more nuanced than your meme suggests.
As an example The Midwest in the states does not have mass transit, so they have to drive. So trains and bikes are out. Hybrid still uses gas, and for the vast majority of them they will be on the freeway, so a hybrid is basically the same as an ICE car anyway, so yeah, I’ll push them into getting EVs if what they’re doing is commuting. However than it gets more nuanced to “is this for roadtrips”, because then maybe hybrid is better.
Which is why again I say it’s a person-to-person basis. For you maybe a hybrid is the only option, but saying EVs are wrong for everyone is a very naive approach.
Yeah. America isn’t the world.
Plenty of countries have functioning public transport.
America is not the exception, you can survive without cars.
Remember kids, if you’re not solving climate change entirely in one single step, there’s no point in trying.
Seriously, what a brain dead argument lol
I think it’s under the premise of, of you have a functional car. It you got rid of that and bought an electric, you aren’t helping anything.
There’s a lot wrong with this video as most videos on EVs from 2016. The data is sources for electricity production is actually over a decade old now (Sep 2013) and it rationalizes that the electric cars will break down before the grid ever moves towards greener sources. This is a very silly notion considering solar is straining the grid with too much power at times, times where EVs could charge. They can also charge over night encouraging nuclear power to be more financially feasible as nuclear relies on a base load as they don’t like to turn off.
They’re not a silver bullet and in some cases like the Hummer EV they are worse than an old car but if you have to drive a lot it is completely less carbon intensive than an ICE for most EVs.
Here’s a still pretty old but more nuanced video: https://piped.video/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM
The greenest car is a train car.
Plus, ev’s keep the pollution out of the cities and places we tend to live in.
Yeah! It keeps it in India and Madagascar, fuck those guys.
What’s the matter with you? Who stole your lunch money?
Didn’t realize I needed an /s
TYL
Every car on the road being converted to electric with magic wouldn’t fix climate change. If you didn’t also get trucks and SUVs it may not even move the needle Personal car use is not a major cause of climate change. It just doesn’t matter compared to industrial and commercial emissions.
Of course it won’t fix climate change in one go, but doing so would remove a major fossil fuel dependency for your average Joe and make them much more likely to vote against fossil fuels.
Put another way, how many people driving gas cars would vote in favor of heavy taxes on fossil fuel use?
Now, how many would vote that way if they personally didn’t have any dependencies on fossil fuels?
Also, highway vehicles account for 1.5 billion tons of GHGs being emitted each year, that’s 11% of the global yearly GHG emissions, so yeah, it definetely would “move the needle”. In the US specifically it’s as much as 20% of our nations emissions.
And yeah I already know the next argument “bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It” - except you’re not necessarily, in my area (part of CA), you can choose to have 100% of your electricity provided by renewable sources for a small monthly premium ($18/month). Additionally in CA, all new homes are being built with solar power, which further increases your ability to charge without fossil fuels.
And in the areas that isn’t true, it’s at least getting groundwork laid down to make it true. An electric car can be powered by renewable energy, a fossil fuel car must be powered by fossil fuels.
There are a lot of steps to solving climate change beyond “buy an electric car”, and you’re right that industrial and commercial pollution accounts for the majority, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be pushing on all fronts.
We’ve already waited way too long to act, we can’t afford as a species to say “well, I’m not going to change my car until the industrial polluters get their shit together”, we have to push in Every possible direction, all at the same time to make progress, and electric cars overtaking fossil fuel cars is a big part of that.
There’s a lot of work to be done globally until electric cars are 100% green, both in terms of power infrastructure and the processes to create them, but there’s no way forward with gas cars, so we need to start moving over as a society now, phasing out the production of gas cars with electric
This is the exact kind of fucking bullshit that i hate.
Of course it won’t fix climate change in one go
Be honest: It won’t fix it at all. It won’t significantly impact climate change. It won’t insignificantly impact climate change.
so yeah, it definetely would “move the needle”
First of all: emissions are not the target. Climate change is the target. Even if all human related greenhouse gas emissions ceased tomorrow we would still be facing catastrophic climate change and then an effectively indefinite period (on a human scale) before things settled down again. We cannot not-pollute our way out of this mess.
Let me reiterate: We can no longer change the outcome by reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and consumer car usage is a small slice of overall carbon dioxide emissions. Of course, we could make it worse. So how much do consumer cars contribute to making it worse?
I don’t know if your figure of billions of tons is worldwide or not, the worldwide number i found here is about 3 billion metric tons. (It dropped for 2020! Yay we did it!) In contrast, Wikipedia (who I believe are taking their numbers from the IPCC) lists about 35 billion tons (about 32 billion metric tons) of co2 from fossil fuel burning, with total greenhouse gas emissions of about 50 billion tons (about 45 billion metric).
Then there’s also reduction in the Earth’s ability to extract co2 due to land use (chopping down forests). This is difficult to model because it’s not a direct emission but it is undeniably a result of human activity that unbalances the Earth’s climate. That Wikipedia article earlier says that total emissions from 1870 to 2017 were about 1.5 trillion tons from fossil fuels and 660 billion tons from land use change which works out to be about 31% of the total. Note that this is total and cumulative so again: Ceasing all emissions would not change this number. No longer cutting down forests (etc) would not change this number a single gram.
Then there are other factors that are making climate change worse but they’re not that important in comparison. I’m going to ignore them because i am not a scientist and i’m not writing a scientific paper here.
I am going to be harsh, however. If you take that 3 billion number and you divide it into the 32 billion number you get about 10%, as you say.
That’s not correct if you want to make a difference for climate change.
If you take that 3 billion number and you divide it into the 1.5 trillion tons number you get about 0.2%.
So to answer the question above: how much worse do consumer cars make climate change? Well, they worsen the situation with carbon dioxide by about 0.2% per year, coming from about 10% of our overall emissions, and carbon dioxide is only one of the factors contributing to climate change. So overall? Not much.
And yeah I already know the next argument “bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It”…
That is not my argument.
…except you’re not necessarily, in my area (part of CA), you can choose to have 100% of your electricity provided by renewable sources for a small monthly premium ($18/month).
Oh my god, of course you couldn’t help it. The smug liberal (derogatory) virtue signalling had to come out. Jesus fucking Christ.
You understand, right, that if you pay $18 and go from a 50/50 split of fossil fuel and renewable energy (about where CA is) and your neighbor does not what ends up happening is you go 0% fossil fuel and your neighbor goes to 100% fossil fuel and nothing changes, right?
Like, you’re paying $18 not to change anything, you’re paying $18 so you can go on the internet and complain about how everyone else isn’t fixing climate change like you are.
The corporate response to climate change has been to try to convince everyone to take shorter showers, switch to an electric car, and install solar panels. That is, for individual people to do things (that don’t matter) and for corporations to continue doing things (that do matter, negatively). You unironically listed two of the three elements of a fucking climate change denial meme.
Also current renewable energy isn’t actually that great. I guess this is the right time for my pitch for nuclear power.
If you want to actually have an impact (in the “stop making things worse” direction not the “fix climate change” direction) then let me suggest nuclear power. Nuclear power is great. It’s a proven technology. Even nuclear power at its worst is still better than coal, even if you ignore the greenhouse gas emissions difference. I’d argue nuclear power is better than modern renewables too but this post is long enough so i won’t.
Right now, coal fired power plants account for 20% of fossil fuel emissions and are the single largest source of emissions. and… well… let me direct quote:
Notably, just 5% of the world’s power plants account for almost three-quarters of carbon emissions from electricity generation, based on an inventory of more than 29,000 fossil-fuel power plants across 221 countries.
Putting it a different way, almost 15% of all fossil fuel emissions come from 5% of the world’s power plants.
So it’s great that California is doing better than average, but if you want to make a difference in emissions you don’t try to change every single car on the planet over to electric, which is a tremendous task to undertake. You kill that 5% of power plants and replace them with nuclear. (Or okay if it really makes you feel better i’d be on board with renewables too but nuclear is still the better and more practical solution.)
There are a lot of steps to solving climate change beyond “buy an electric car”, and you’re right that industrial and commercial pollution accounts for the majority, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be pushing on all fronts.
If you want to make a difference right now, probably the best thing you can possibly do is advocate against coal power plants. It’s both easier to do than replacing all cars and it would have a bigger impact.
In 2035, 12 years from now, Europe plans to mandate all new cars to be electric. Europe is not responsible for the majority of passenger vehicle emissions. Most countries do not have plans that are anywhere near as ambitious. The US is only aiming at 50%, and that 50% of vehicles that get switched over won’t be the ones emitting the most greenhouse gases. (Hybrids being switched to full electrics have little impact when Ford F150s are the most popular vehicle in America.)
Meanwhile, that 5% of power plants is still out there. Industrial and agricultural emissions are still out there. Land use changes are still out there. The vast majority of everything that brought us to this point is still out there, untouched. And when will you get your 100% electric cars worldwide? In 2045? 2060? How deep underwater will Miami and New York City be by the time that happens? How many people will die in the meantime? How much further will the ecosystems of the world be destabilized?
This isn’t about “pushing on all fronts”. This is about moralizing at individual people about their personal decisions, which did not cause this problem and cannot fix it. Paying $18 to California power companies isn’t about improving the world it’s about making you, personally, feel better. Like you’ve “done your part”. Meanwhile, the planet is burning. In the coming years, it will burn more and more.
Capitalism wants to pretend that everyone acting individually can solve problems but capitalism created this problem and it cannot and will not solve it.
So what do you suggest that can actually be done, besides removed about it on Lemmy?
You talk a lot about moralizing without actually making a difference, but that’s exactly what you’re doing in your comment.
So hit us with it - what should we be doing instead? Other than removed about it on Lemmy, I mean?
So what do you suggest that can actually be done, besides removed about it on Lemmy?
I somehow fucking knew this was coming, Everyone has the same response regardless of what you say.
I suggested targeting the most heavily polluting power plants for conversion to clean energy. This suggestion is:
- Practical from a cost standpoint
- Could be accomplished with current technology
- Easier to implement politically than “make all cars electric”
- Would have a bigger impact on the environment than “make all cars electric”.
You: “Well if you don’t have any ideas…”
I know my comment was long but you aren’t really arguing with me, you’re arguing with the shadows that live inside your head. This was true of your previous post, too. See:
And yeah I already know the next argument “bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It”…
(Which is still not and never has been my argument.)
For the record it’s my belief that we could currently not only halt but fully reverse climate change (though it would take maybe 100 years) at our current technological level. I believe it’s possible. However, i do not know of any way to do it that does not require major change to the political and economic systems of the West (the ones that brought us to this point, in other words: Capitalism). Back in the '70s it would have been way easier to address this but now we’re on hard mode.
You talk a lot about moralizing without actually making a difference, but that’s exactly what you’re doing in your comment.
I’m critiquing a moralizing argument, it’s somewhat inevitable that my critique will also adopt the form of a moral argument. Unless you want me to argue that all morals, all ideas of “good” and “bad”, are phantasms that are propagated by the powerful as a form of social control or something. Which i also could do, but it seems a little abstract given the current conversation.
Even granting you that point there’s still a difference:
My arguments are concerned about outcomes, about material conditions in people’s lives, they include the concept of collective and corporate action.
Your arguments are superficial, concerned about appearances, do not acknowledge the context or history of how we came to where we are, and are primarily concerned with individual actions that wealthy Westerners can take without regard to the practicality of implementation across the rest of the world.
I’m going to throw out one more thing:
Even if cars were the biggest source of carbon dioxide, going to all electric cars is not the best solution. Building electric cars still has a significant environmental impact, including greenhouse gas emissions. Better still would be mass transit. Trains and buses are more environmentally friendly still and would allow us to make other changes to society that would further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, that option is not favored by our capitalist overlords…
There’s this concept under socialism called “development” where you make small steps towards your desired outcome. Naturally, capitalists hate this which is why they spend so much money pushing for all-or-nothing “solutions” and encouraging people to quit when it doesn’t work. Whatever it takes to make sure that people don’t fundamentally challenge their illegitimate rule as they burn the planet for profit.
We will never consumer our way of of a problem capitalism created. And public transit is nearly always a better solution to spending on car infrastructure.
… but… If you’re gonna buy a new car anyway, they have the potential to cause less climate impact (although they’re still environmentally devastating in other ways). As power generation becomes cleaner, so too do the cars. ICE cars are already about as environmentally friendly as they’re gonna get, but EVs still have a lot of potential improvement (both in emissions and in things like material mining).
Although the tire microplastics is gonna get worse.
The main issue in the push for electric cars, is that we’re pretending that we can fix things with no lifestyle changes.
And for the richer people, that’s probably true. But there’s a big chunk of people for whom the electric car revolution means no more personal transport.
I accept that, but we need to invest in public transport exponentially more than we are doing. It needs subsidising up the wazoo so people outside the inner-city bubble can still get around. By just pretending that electric cars will reach affordable levels for the poorest, we’re inviting trouble further down the line when they can’t use their petrol cars any more.
Keeping an old car is better, but having one that works is even better than that. Cause, you know, eventually cars stop working. That’s a thing.
#sobbing, crying, utterly inconsolable.
All I want is small, cheap, reliable economy boxes back. Simple, uncomplicated, user servicable, cheap cars. Engine, transmission, differential, a cab, lights, wind down windows. Without an unnecessary extra 5 miles off wires for the equally unnecessary half ton of electronics and plastic.
Unfortunately that seems to be an unreasonable ask nowadays.
This post is fucking idiotic. Without electric cars climate change CANNOT be addressed.
Nothing is ever as simple as a single solution. Mouth breathing OPs need to get that through their thick stupid skulls
Without electric VEHICLES* climate change cannot be addressed. Expensive new electric cars are not the solution. Electric public transport, retrofitting old vehicles, making current vehicles last, and people adopting two wheeled electric solutions will be the solution. Cars like Teslas are awful and buying one shouldn’t be considered making a difference.
Afraid you’re wasting your breath. OP appears to be a member of fuckcars, which feels like it’s coming from a good place but is mostly just short-sighted and infantile. I live in DFW and not having a vehicle is not an option, but these folk would classify me alongside the devil because I dare to use a combustion engine. If I could realistically use an electric vehicle I would.
I’m sure that in OPs mind everyone should just abandon their cars tomorrow and that will immediately solve all of the climate change as if private vehicle owners are the ones actually causing the problem in the first place.
Fuckcars is made up of people with little life experience who think they have all the answers, and people who fetishize city living and think it’s normal or healthy for humans to live at a density like NYC (and fuck you if you disagree). They’re oversimplifying to the point of meaninglessness, and handwaving away the problems.
I’ve lived in places far less dense than NYC with robust public transit far better than NYC. Owning a car would’ve just been a burden 99% of the time. And it was certainly healthier than living in car-centric suburbs, both physically and mentally. Not everywhere is America where we can’t fathom anything but cars and McMansions
What’s far less dense with better public transit than NYC? The most popular example of no-car city design I see is Amsterdam, which is 1/2 the density of NYC, but still 15x the density of where I’m from (not even close to a rural area). I think robust public transit at 1/15th the density of Amsterdam and 1/30th the density of NYC is a pipe dream.
In these lower density places, maybe you luck out and you’re walking or biking distance to work. If you change jobs do you have to move instead of hopping in the car and commuting a bit further? In circumstances like these, transit can’t possibly serve every origin and destination efficiently, and personal vehicles can offer efficient point to point.
Double overly reductionist takes with no positive contribution. Congrats! This is crap.
