they definitely address it, they just are definitely not the ultimate solution.
going from drilling for oil to mining for lithium is literally just problem shifting.
It doesn’t address climate change, it just misdirects the issue away from it being an oil-based climate disaster.
The only solution is less cars, not less of X type of car.
Do you have a rough idea how much oil you need for a fossil car and how much lithium for an electric?
Yeah, instead of flooring it to the cliff of climate change, we shift gear to a leisurely cruise to the climate change cliff.
Sure, it’s better. But EVs aren’t being pushed because they’re better, they’re being pushed because if they didn’t, then they wouldn’t be able to sell cars at all.
To be fair, getting rid of capitalism and stopping climate change, as powerful of a 1-2 punch it would be, is probably the most difficult challenge of our life. Incremental change might work. We already have a reactionary half of the country that wants to shoot the other because they think the other wants to make them stop eating red meat and take away their gas stoves.
So, what’s the solution that fixes this for EVERYONE? It’s not about inconviencing people it’s about getting people on board with the solution. And the people who need to be on board with the solution think the problem is a hoax.
You really ought to step back and compare the amount of lithium needed to be mined vs the current fossil fuel production. There a vast difference. Then adjust it for the Lithium being infinitely reusable, vs fossil fuels not at all.
This is just no true lmao
It’s wild but it actually is. BEVs produce around 30% fewer emissions per km than ICEs if you include every emmission on both sides.
With better manufactoring and better energy mix, you could expect maybe 40% fewer emissions compared to ICEs in a couple decades in the EU (likely much worse in the U.S. and other less democratic places).That’s not nothing and an amazing feat of engineering for sure but still nowhere near sustainable because the baseline (ICE) is just incredibly bad. 30-40% less than “incredibly bad” is simply not “good” when we actually need to be as close to 100% as possible.
If we shifted all current ICE transport to BEVs, that’d at best be a very small step in the right direction, not a solution in any shape or form.
We actually cannot put every single person on the planet into ther own 1-3t metal box to move them around, no matter the engine type of that box.
BS. You’re assuming current (or is that past) levels of renewable energy and no recycling. Sure mining and processing done rare earths is polluting and energy intensive, but it gets cleaner every year based simply on increased renewable energy. Also, most of these metals are infinitely reusable, and just aren’t yet because it’s not worth it until they’re widely used
You’re assuming current (or is that past) levels of renewable energy and no recycling.
See the 40% figure. It assumes realistically achievable goals in the EU for the next decade or two.
most of these metals are infinitely reusable, and just aren’t yet because it’s not worth it until they’re widely used
That’s not the problem. The problem is that it’s not economical to recycle them. You technically could recycle them in the present day but mining new resources and throwing the old stuff into a landfill is just cheaper and I don’t see that changing any time soon, especially not in undemocratic neo-“liberal” places such as the U.S.
This argument also misses that the current demand for transport is much smaller than the future demand will likely be. We aren’t even close to putting every human on earth into their own metal box yet; that insanity is still in front of us if we continue like we have been the past century.
most of these metals are infinitely reusable, and just aren’t yet
Nothing is infinitely reusable. We have so much e-waste.
They don’t address car dependancy
Some people got convinced that banning thermal personal vehicles was incompatible with the bigger picture goals. You can develop a 15min city and a public transport system while also banning thermal personal vehicles.
I don’t know what’s driving this misinformation campaign about electric vehicles “polluting more” or “polluting just as much” when it takes 5 minutes of googling to find 6 reputable sources disputing both these claims
Banning the sale of new thermal cars, motorcycles, vespas does help with climate change in the long run
Some people have taken it upon themselves to refuse some incremental improvements and it’s only leading to doing nothing
What is a thermal car?
An internal combustion engine (ICE) car, or in other terms one that burns fuel to generate motion.
OP should just say that then, no one fucking says “thermal car”
First step is REDUCE. Then RE-USE, then Recycle. Tesla cars do none of this. Muskrat is a capitalist who is exploiting the electric care concept.
Cars itself are actually only a small part of climate change. The major part of it is form construction, planes, and electricity. We can fix electricity with sustainable energy, fixing planes is a lot harder as of now. Fixing construction seems impossible for now.
We’ll run out of time before we we hit zero. We are already too fast to break before the cliff. All we can hope for is a soft landing, and we need everything for that. Even nuclear energy (go 100% on nuclear!)
From the EPA, on US emissions:
The largest sources of transportation greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 were light-duty trucks, which include sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans (37%); medium- and heavy-duty trucks (23%); passenger cars (21%); commercial aircraft (7%); other aircraft (2%); pipelines (4%); ships and boats (3%); and rail (2%).
Driving accounts for a larger percentage of emissions than you’d think - something like 14% of emissions are gasoline alone.
Electric cars have about half the lifecycle emissions of gas cars, so that’s equivalent to a ~7% reduction in emissions - more if the grid goes solar.
That said, replacing suburban sprawl with traditional denser streetcar suburbs like you see in the Netherlands would be a much bigger reduction in emissions.
Wdym, in terms of construction? Do you mean emissions from concrete, emissions from steel manufacture of rebar, environmental impacts of deforestation for wooden housing? As far as I understand it, there are a couple of thrown around solutions to that, like adobe, superadobe, rammed earth, cob, compressed earth blocks, and mixed concrete compressed earth blocks, going kind of order from what I’ve seen of hotter to colder climates, roughly. And none of those even really include the use of straight stone or wood, either. Surely, if you’re moving away from cars, as is the MO of this sub, you need less huge bridges and shit, less superstructures, skyscrapers, and that also cuts down on the use of concrete and steel. Most of the reason why people don’t like those materials is just as a result of higher labor costs, which is mostly as a result of them being unusual in the modern day, which means they’ll remain unusual, because everything has to be minmaxxed to shit on this god damn rock.
EVs can also act as a battery for the home and a back up generator. A lot more useful than just a car. Now I know this sublulemmy is urbanist, but the sorts of people to buy a car don’t live in a city.
Throw some solar panels on your roof and you’ve got a stew, baby! Erm, well, you have a low grade solar and battery system, same thing.
Useful for natural disasters.
They are the better alternative compared to combustion considering the carbon dioxide footprint.
Yet, of course, to really address climate change and the destruction of our planet we need to get away from cars.
Let’s think then of electric VEHICLES. you know buses, trucks included.
Being against electric cars, at this moment, is being for combustion cars.
I drive an EV (not a tesla) and I agree. I have it primarily because its cheaper to run… My ancient previous car didn’t owe me anything, I ran it into the ground.
Yep, I got an EV purely for the savings.
No matter what we do or suggest, troglodytes are going to look at the step up or downstream from that and claim that nothing matters because nothing is “as good” so why bother.
Reject nihilism.
They have a lower emissions after a few years even with higher initial manufacturing emissions even in areas with coal as the source of power, just takes longer to recoup. https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM?si=ythLgdv93D6zC3WM
They allow for government to control the means of electricity production that powers these vehicles
While not perfect it is a decent step to remove the individual citizen’s direct pollution and leave control In the hands of government. This is where the change needs to happen for manufacturing and other large scale polluters.
yup. no one thing will.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
But EVs aren’t even good.
Compared to ICE? Yes, they are.
From what I’ve seen: EVs normally produce about half the carbon of regular cars, mostly from making the batteries. Switching fully to EVs would therefore reduce worldwide emissions by about 8%, compared to 16% by just getting rid of cars completely. EVs also don’t fix the societal problems of cars including sprawl and all of its related problems.
An ideal future would have no internal combustion engines and only EVs. But there would be a lot fewer of them, and preferably in a much smaller form factor.
As an unrelated side note, when I read ‘ICE’, the first thing that came to mind was the train. I’ve never even been to Germany…
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
While they don’t address it directly, they do provide a route to address it. The issue is a lot of governments are pushing electric cars, and washing their hands of the rest.
There are 3 issues with electric cars.
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They are cars - Obvious to most here, but better public transport can vastly improve the situation, regardless of how the car is powered.
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Batteries - Electric car batteries are far from perfect. Their range is reduced and they are heavier. There is also the issue of lithium, and/or other chemicals used in the batteries.
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Power source - An electric car is only as clean as its energy supply. Powering it from a coal power station is far worse than using renewables.
Counter to these however.
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Cars will still be needed, to some extent. Electric are the least worst option we have NOW. We no longer have time to wait for a better option, or find a perfect solution.
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Lithium can be recycled; we currently don’t, due to the small amounts, but this will change as economics adjust . Also, we are not actually that short of it, it’s just not be economically valuable enough to mine on a larger scale. Range can be adjusted as tech improves. We can also change how we operate. E.g. Combining out of town parking and charging with public transport options is an excellent way to get people using public transport on a large scale again, in an organic manner.
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Power wise, it’s easy to shift an electric car from fossil fuel to renewables. It’s very difficult to shift an ICE car. This is also something we should be doing far more anyhow (but no-one seems to be interested in improving the grid!). On a side note, even accounting for various losses. The sheer efficiency factor of a power station means it’s still better to burn oil to run an electric car, than to run the car directly on the oil.
Don’t get me wrong, the fixation on electric cars is dangerous, but they are still required as part of the solution. We just need to actually work on that solution. While the right, in politics, has a tendency to “circle the wagons” which causes a significant number of problems. The left has a tendency towards “circular firing squads”. We should all be careful not to help kill ideas and projects that pull in vaguely the right direction, even if it’s not exactly what we want.
Sir, you’re on “fuckcars”, get your measured reasonable response out of here. All that people want to hear is “cars bad”.
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Electric cars driving up the price of lithium 400% thanks elon can’t even afford last-mile transportation anymore
And they shed even more microplastics into the environment because they’re heavier so the tires wear down faster :(
This is an obvious bad faith argument.
“Let’s keep burning fossil fuels as we go extinct from climate change cause I’m worried about the 0.00001% micro plastics that MIGHT be shed from an EV”
Uhh, you say .00001% that MIGHT? I think you mean: nearly twice as much because EV’s go through tires nearly twice as fast, and ABSOLUTELY ARE. Microplastics are shed from tires, I don’t know what makes you think they aren’t. All that tire tread that is now gone on your tires when they go “bald” didn’t just disappear, they shed into the air and the rain washes them down into streams.
Also fun fact, EV tire particles are even more toxic than regular tires. And regular tire particles are already one of the most toxic microplastics studied.
I work in a nano particle toxicology lab that has a pretty big focus on micro and nanoplaatics.
Respectfully, no one gives a fuck. Greenhouse gases are so much more important than microplastics, it’s not even a comparison.
