Which is why it’s not the right solution to emitting less pollution. It would take far longer than we have until we’ve fucked the planet completely at the rate. That’s why switching to green vehicles is a far more achievable goal. Humans are selfish and they’ll burn the world if their short-term livelihood is at stake.
“Green” vehicles aren’t doing to do it, though. They solve the problem of tailpipe emissions, yes, but not the resources needed to manufacture, operate, and dispose of them. I saw an infographic recently that pointed out than an electric car uses (generously speaking) only about 2/3 of the energy of an ICE car over its whole lifecycle. That’s… good, but not enough. It also doesn’t account for the direct CO2 emissions from the chemical process of curing concrete. EVs still need concrete to run on.
Also, CO2 emissions are not the whole story on how cars fuck the planet. There are the lifecycle resources, all of the plastic, glass, and metal, which still take fossil fuels to produce, either as a raw material, or as energy. There’s ecological destruction to get those resources, to get the resources to build the roads, to clear the space for the roads, for the sprawl that they facilitate, in the fragmentation of habitat, and the heavy toll taken on wildlife directly by roadkill. There’s also the pollution, like PM2.5 from tires, which causes asthma and heart disease in humans, and runs off into waterways and destroys zooplankton. There’s groundwater, lakes and streams becoming saline from widespread use of road salt.
I mean, we’re in the midst of a sixth mass extinction event on Earth, and it’s only fractionally driven by climate change. Automobiles, even the “green” variety, contribute greatly to the problem.
![[meme] Simple problems require simple solutions](https://imgur.com/8cT1yFG.png){kind=link}
Which is why it’s not the right solution to emitting less pollution. It would take far longer than we have until we’ve fucked the planet completely at the rate. That’s why switching to green vehicles is a far more achievable goal. Humans are selfish and they’ll burn the world if their short-term livelihood is at stake.
“Green” vehicles aren’t doing to do it, though. They solve the problem of tailpipe emissions, yes, but not the resources needed to manufacture, operate, and dispose of them. I saw an infographic recently that pointed out than an electric car uses (generously speaking) only about 2/3 of the energy of an ICE car over its whole lifecycle. That’s… good, but not enough. It also doesn’t account for the direct CO2 emissions from the chemical process of curing concrete. EVs still need concrete to run on.
Also, CO2 emissions are not the whole story on how cars fuck the planet. There are the lifecycle resources, all of the plastic, glass, and metal, which still take fossil fuels to produce, either as a raw material, or as energy. There’s ecological destruction to get those resources, to get the resources to build the roads, to clear the space for the roads, for the sprawl that they facilitate, in the fragmentation of habitat, and the heavy toll taken on wildlife directly by roadkill. There’s also the pollution, like PM2.5 from tires, which causes asthma and heart disease in humans, and runs off into waterways and destroys zooplankton. There’s groundwater, lakes and streams becoming saline from widespread use of road salt.
I mean, we’re in the midst of a sixth mass extinction event on Earth, and it’s only fractionally driven by climate change. Automobiles, even the “green” variety, contribute greatly to the problem.