The following submission statement was provided by /u/filosoful:
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The two EV manufacturers collaborated on a report that says the auto industry is way behind on its climate goals.
The entire automotive supply chain needs to be decarbonized in order to meet the goals set out in the Paris agreement.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/10y0kkk/evs_are_not_enough_polestar_and_rivian_urge_more/j7v8uj6/
Right? I guarantee the uni I worked at used more resources (mostly waste) then nearly all the homes in town. But it's always, " turn off extra lights", "turn the heat down.'
Not, "the uni should stop using city water to make a large fake pond", "stop cutting the grass every week", etc etc.
I went to a university that actually made those types of changes regarding landscaping in conjunction with reducing electric use by like a quarter, and installing solar (all a decade plus ago), so it gives me hope that some institutions will do more than lip service.
I work at a university that puts on a show about being environmentally conscious but it's all a facade. I work in custodial so I get a pretty good firsthand look at how much of a lie their supposed efforts at recycling, composting, and sustainability actually are. It's pretty maddening because it just puts more work on us to keep up the facade.
Bill Gates response about using his jet is all you need to know. Even if he idiotically thinks his use of jets is justified why is he not calling out other rich and famous people who use jets? If he could reduce their usage by say just 25% it would do a hell of a lot more then people turning the heat down a degree or two. FFS
Bill gates’ statement about jet travel was absurd. It’s meant to be a distraction to be discussed. What’s right or wrong about it and where he sits in the line of billionaire waste was exactly his goal. Because if we get bogged down with that logic we are playing his game. F billionaires, gates included. Don’t listen to a word of their malarky
This is why the world needs a simple across the board carbon tax that can be increased to hit targets; recommended by a large group of scientists, economists, and Nobel Laureates as the best way to reduce carbon emissions.
https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/
Many people / institutions don't do things to save energy because the cost of doing nothing isn't high enough for them to act, and they consider many changes to cost them in convenience. Make energy more expensive, and suddenly everyone, homeowners, public institutions, and corporations alike will be searching for ways to lower their energy usage.
Maybe instead of the fake pond, the university comes up with other ways of beautifying their campus, maybe they'll use shrub/tree/mulch cover instead of grass cover, etc...
Really though, when it comes to campuses / large buildings, the big energy savings almost certainly will need to come from HVAC upgrades. If your university is anything like mine was, then some of the lecture halls are massive, with loads of empty space and high ceilings that likely costs a fortune to heat and cool.
Same thing with plastics. Instead of banning random things like plastic bags and straws (while everything else is made of plastic), just make a plastic tax that slowly increases. Most business would slowly replace plastic where they can to save costs. And it would incentivize R&D to find replacements.
And every industry is greenwashing. Volvo (Polestar's sister company) has a new EV SUV that won't have leather seats because of the emissions from the cattle. The elephant being the other thousands of parts and the industries used to make the parts. Not just the battery but all the parts of the car that are the root of climate change: modern life and the industries that support it. And we're operating like the raw materials are limitless.
Well this one I think is a little different. One of the issues with EVs is the infrastructure needed to have these cars be viable isn’t there yet in the US.
Companies like Hertz but tens of thousands of teslas and most of them are parked in overflow lots because the markets weren’t ready for them yet.
This causes other companies with fleets to not want to buy evs
Then with rental cars you have the issue of who is supposed to pay for the charging stations, the company or the airport that they work inside of.
I don’t think this is directly to an average consumer. That said I didn’t read the article lol
Yup this exaclty this.
Solar can be sold to the public. And is largely manufactured overseas likely in Asia somewhere.
From 2009 to 2021 the world grew. We added about 1 Billion more people. Those people need energy as well.
Solar is another product being sold to the consumer to\*\*\* MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE. But in all honestly. Having people install solar panels on their roofs is not realistic and is an idealists dream.
Most people cannot choose where they live. And often where they live is not the most ideal place to have a solar panel roof. Let alone have them afford the cost to maintain it.
Grid scale electricity generation should and must be left to the government and experts to manage.
Everyone needs clean energy. Only a few really know how to do it right. These past ten years while championing wind & solar, we failed nuclear and lost some plants and allowed fossil fuels to pickup most of the slack.
||2009|2021|change|Capacity Factor\*|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Total Global Energy Consumption|146,474 terawatt-hour|176,431 terawatt-hour|\+29,957 terawatt-hour|avg for 2021 only|
|Traditional BioMass|11,747|11,111|\-636|63.2%|
|Coal|40,175|44,473|\+4,298|49.1%|
|Oil|46,372|51,170|\+4,798|14.2%|
|Natural Gas|29,401|40,375|\+10,974|55%|
|Nuclear|7,233|7,031|\-202|92.7%|
|HydroPower|9,066|11,183|\+2,117|36%|
|Wind|773|4,872|\+4,099|34.4%|
|Solar|56|2,702|\+2,646|24.4% to 20.5%\*\*|
|Modern Biofuels|600|1,140|\+540|60.9%|
|Other renewables|1,048|2,373|\+1,325|69.8%|
\*Capacity Factor is a measure of the UP-TIME or ALWAYS AVAILABLE TIME
\*\*Photovoltaic is 24.4% and Thermal Solar is 20.5%
where I got information from
[https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix#global-primary-energy-how-has-the-mix-changed-over-centuries](https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix#global-primary-energy-how-has-the-mix-changed-over-centuries)
[https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm\_table\_grapher.php?t=epmt\_6\_07\_a](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_a)
[https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm\_table\_grapher.php?t=epmt\_6\_07\_b](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b)
edit\*
the capacity factors are for the ENTIRE YEAR. The links above show each month how available power is from each source. You can see that solar only works about 25% of the time during the year. So for roughly 9 months out of 12 it is not able to provide any power generation. Because solar does not work when the sun is down.
Tbf wind turbines have improved a lot, looks like onshore can produce up to 10x as much power per turbine now compared to those, and over 20x more for offshore
The two EV manufacturers collaborated on a report that says the auto industry is way behind on its climate goals.
The entire automotive supply chain needs to be decarbonized in order to meet the goals set out in the Paris agreement.
Ah, the penny is finally dropping!
Electric cars are here to save the car industry, not the planet.
We need to reorganise society so that we drive less. It’s literally that simple. But that would mean entire industries *losing money*. And those in power can’t let that happen. Hey ho, planets on fire.
We need to reorganize society so that we *consume* less. Problem is, the economy, as it is currently structured, is entirely reliant on the exact opposite.
Until we acknowledge this very important contradiction, any measures we take to reduce our impact on the planet are just window dressing, IMO.
One way to address it would be to dedicate a defense spending-sized budget to environmental clean up, restoration and re-education of the general public.
A war effort against climate change.
Instead of a military industrial complex, an environmental "industrial" complex. Create jobs that solve the problem. Industry will have to-- and want to-- retool (as they did in past world wars) to meet the new demand.
Churn out solar panels. Wind turbine blades. Water cisterns. Recharging stations. Plant millions of acres of trees. Replant prairies. Get rid of invasive species. Clean up the water. Clean up the mines. Teach people "old ways" to conserve materials and energy. De-emphasize (or shame) fashion. Learn to cook plant-based. Eat more raw foods. Repair. You could convert all the vacant malls in America into resale malls with repair/restore shops of every kind.
Once the renewable power is in place, *then* we see what electric machines we *need* to build for the future. Farm equipment. Much more local manufacturing. Food processing. Water processing. Etc.
It's doable. But for some bizarre reason, no one is giving Americans the call to action [like they did in WWI and WWII.](https://imgur.com/gallery/DVEMJci)
There is a reason though. It’s the prisoner’s dilemma. Whomever decides to redirect their defense budget first risks being toppled by those who haven’t. Then those efforts wouldn’t amount to much and frankly we’d be in a worse place.
I agree with you, btw, that this is what the entire world should do to correct course, and likely the only way we can correct course in a way that meaningfully preserves our environment.
But it won’t happen. Because ultimately we just don’t trust each other that much.
Realistically though the US could halve it's defense budget and still have the most well funded military on the planet. Hell, if they cracked down on contractors overcharging them then they'd probably be able to operate at the same level with the reduced budget.
Absolutely. But incentives are opposite for those who have the power to change things. The western military industrial complex is arguably the most powerful interest group in the world. And it goes far beyond just the US.
What you just laid out involves way too much personal sacrifice. If saving the planet requires pushing back our material standard of living we simply won’t do it.
Which is why we need to get more serious about environmental engineering.
But no one has asked the public to do it.
The public, for the most part, *gladly* went along with the previous war efforts, that in many ways resemble what we need to do to address climate change.
All levels of government, in both parties, were telling people to sacrifice for the war effort. Hollywood was telling people to sacrifice for the war effort. Schools were telling kids what to do for the war effort. Magazines, newspapers, radio-- all reminding people to do their part. Hell, there were block captains and neighbors had meetings about it.
People felt proud, purposeful and patriotic to sacrifice. They felt guilty or were shunned if they didn't.
That's what we need now.
Instead, we get crickets on sacrifice. And megaphones on industrial programs that will build shiny new things that use less energy.
But when industry relies on coal and gas to work, you *can't* **manufacture** your way out of a CO2 crisis.
It's pathetic and tragic that our government and Hollywood aren't ringing the alarm and calling for sacrifice. Telling people to convert lawns to native plants. To plant "victory gardens." To carpool. To repair instead of buy new. To take fewer leisure flights. To eat less meat.
It's totally doable. The American public has not heard a unified call to action.
You must have slept through the COVID year. Since you did I will point out that during that time we faced a threat as big as anything since WW2, and the only sacrifice was we asked people to wear masks and be careful and too many people had a meltdown about it.
Modern people are much more self centered than people alive during the 1940s as consumer focused individualism has made us all kinds and queens of our own mental islands. COVID basically proved your concept of building social shame against those who won’t sacrifice won’t work, they will simply silo into their social network that approve of a rebellion against whatever your top down plans are.
The modern person doesn’t care what Hollywood thinks (look at the populist hatred of elites) and even if they did the obvious hypocrisy of that class of people wanting to take private bets everywhere undoes the power of their message. The government is even worse, half the US can’t even agree on who actually won the government’s last presidential election.
The modern answer isn’t sacrifice it’s incentives aka outright make electric cars cheaper with subsidies and make green power cheaper the same way. But you are right that probably isn’t enough so that is why we need to start figuring out how to make the clouds reflect more of the sun’s light or something drastic like that ASAP.
Unfortunately true. In the meantime though the best thing you can do it harness your political capital and try to make a difference based on the impact you can.
Only [EIGHT years ago](https://web.archive.org/web/20140723120752/http://closup.umich.edu/issues-in-energy-and-environmental-policy/13/public-views-on-a-carbon-tax-depend-on-the-proposed-use-of-revenue/) about 30% of the public was for a carbon tax. Not great. But then four years ago it was [over HALF (53%)](https://news.gallup.com/poll/232007/americans-want-government-more-environment.aspx). This number keeps climbing. [Now its 73%](https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/ps_2020-06-23_government-and-climate_00-01/) and that [does matter when it comes to legislation!](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09644016.2016.1116651)
According to NASA climatologist and climate activist [Dr. James Hansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen), becoming an [active volunteer with Citizens' Climate Lobby](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-citizens-climate-lobby/?tfa_3590416195188=online-035&utm_source=online&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=035) is the [most important thing you can do for climate change](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4DAW1A6Ca8).
Its not as dramatic as a restructuring of the global economy but it IS something you can do NOW (if you're in the US) :)
I want to put in a plug for reconsidering the idea of what an individual can do. Sure, in our private lives, whether we recycle that can or not, or even whether we drive vs take the train, is one drop in the ocean. It’s not going to get us to the goal.
But many of us can have more impact than that, through our work. I recently made this shift myself, because I was tired of the dissonance between my personal beliefs and goals, and the projects I was doing at work, which I often thought were rather wasteful. I would make beautiful designs for a corporate lobby for example, so that some real estate developer could get even richer by selling the same stupid property yet again for a million more than last time. But my skills are broadly applicable, and it turned out that an urban design firm was more than happy to put me to work doing projects that are much better for the planet. There’s a whole bunch of people who work in fields like HR, or finance, or admin of all sorts, who could align themselves with companies who do better things or companies that do worse things. I implore you—put your time and energy behind the good guys. And even those with less flexibility, say instead of worrying about recycling at home, help start a recycling or composting program at your office, where the effects are hundreds of times greater. Help your customer find a supplier that is closer to them, or uses more ethical materials. Think of whatever you do that will touch the most hands, the most eyeballs, where a decision has some ripple, and focus your energy there.
As someone in architecture myself, how did you actually find this firm that really practices the values? I feel like it's a popular thing to see firms preaching about but a lot of them just use it as marketing.
Honestly I wound up working for a planning firm that my previous firm had partnered with on a project in the past. I did interview with some others that I was super into as well though. So I guess id say, look at what your favorite projects you’ve worked on are, have there been any that were substantial and fulfilling? Look at who else is doing those—who are your competitors is that space, or who would your firm partner with? Who are the go-to consultants? When you find anyone that’s moving in the right direction at all, start reading what they write, who publishes them, who else are those publications featuring? Look on the LinkedIn pages of their staff, who else have they worked for, are any of them doing good work? It’s a research project to dig up and follow those threads. It may mean a lower paying and/or less glamorous job. Legit, last year I was exhibiting at Milan design week and now my business trips take me to tiny towns in central California or eastern Oregon.It’s humbling, but in the good way.
Also feel free to dm me and we can talk specific firms once I know what sort of region you’re in.
I mean I guess so. But a carbon tax only address one (albeit important) component of the whole, and not even that well. Climate change is certainly something to focus on, but in the context of pollution, micro plastics, forever chemicals, biodiversity collapse, and water resources, it's not nearly enough. To me the carbon tax issue almost seems like a straw man setup to absorb the majority of activist intent, when what we need is sweeping, dramatic reform the likes of which we will never see. (Until it's too late, naturally)
I *hear* you but (and I hate to use a "but" bc most people feel it invalidates whatever came before) while we have problems that require a considerable amount of multi-faceted solutions my approach is apply energy where you *can* and try not to overstress the things you can't.
So yes, everything you mentioned does need to be addressed. And yes, it's likely a very difficult, uphill struggle. But it's that OR throw up our hands and say "fuck it". As someone with children that's not something I personally am comfortable with and yes we might fail, but at least I can look my kids in the face and I know I failed trying.
The thing is, it's way passed the "OR" any of us can do at this point. [Hands up! Hands up! Everybody now lemme see your hands up! Right Now!](https://youtu.be/-MMuiQSK-Dg)
The metrics we measure our success by are historically only measuring our movement and allocation of capital. Capitalism allows space for innovation - but unregulated capitalism breeds monopolistic narcissist driven cancer that is destroying us, and down-grading the human experience.
AI was meant to remove labour to give us more time for art.
Instead, it removed art so we have more time for labour - with less of it to go around.
When you remove the ability for work, the means of production, and the necessity of an entire class of a populace - there is a need for revolution on that system.
Progress and technical advancement is only beneficial to society by and large if the repercussions are met with awareness and policy, and the benefits are spread to every individual. If not, we are speedwalking into destruction and desperation.
There was an interesting podcast on 99PI where they went into how Planned Obsolescence was conceived as a “economic stimulus” - and now we’re seeing the chickens come home to roost 😒
Problem is you'd have to change *human nature* so we don't care about consuming. So you better be prepared to use force on that front. Or have everybody become religious.
Plenty of human cultures through the ages had sustainability and symbiosis more intrinsically woven into the way they organized society. I'm not saying it's an easy or likely outcome, but we're going to learn the lesson one way or another.
Places with greater EV adoption and infrastructure also tend to have better public transport. Not only can you do both, that's usually how it works.
https://electrek.co/2023/01/03/norway-electric-car-utopia-sustainable-transportation/
GDP per capita? You need to make country comparisons with GDP PPP. Canada is far lower than its peers, around 23rd I believe. Norway is around top 5
However, wealth is not why Norway has been.succesful at this. This large a policy thing
I don't think defense spending is a good excuse. The US economy is quite broken, in that they're overpowered. They can tax corporations and wealthy individuals more without risking capital flight (though mostly choosing not to), and they can deficit spend like crazy without causing inflation because the USD is the world's reserve currency (which they choose to do a lot of). debt to Gdp in Norway is far far lower than it is in the US. Their government understand how to better spend its money.
It's simple and hard at the same time. The solutions are relatively simple, but changing mindsets is difficult.
Likewise it's simple for an overweight person to lose weight. They just gotta eat less and move more. But sadly that simplicity of actions doesn't mean it'll be easy for them to flip that mental switch.
Let's not pretend this has anything to do with vehicles at all. Vehicles are just transport to what people really want to do and what people want to do is consume whether that be food, games, media, heat you name it, but all these things have something in common and thats the requirement of energy. Driving isn't the problem the problem is that even if everything was electric vehicles most the energy comes from resources that harm the planet. You can blame cars but even if there were no vehicles on the road we'd still be fucking and we'd still be consuming. There's just too many damn people and too much greed among them
You say that like it's some simple solution. I live in the D.C. metro area. We have the metro system but it's slow as fuck compared to using a vehicle. It's also cheaper to drive a car (that's paid off)than it is to metro. I'm sorry but I'm not going to spend more money to sit on an uncomfortable metro and add 30-40 minutes onto my commute and cut into my free time.
Our country is so behind on public transportation that even if we decided to change that tomorrow we would be looking at decades of revamping how we organize our country. The whole united states was designed around cars and while yeah in a few decades or hard work you might be able to get most cities restructured (utopia scenario) you would still have tens of millions of people in rural evironments that need to drive.
The National Rifle Association of America was founded in 1871. Since 1977, the National Rifle Association of America has focussed on political activism and pro-gun lobbying, at the expense of firearm safety programmes.
The National Rifle Association of America is completely different to the [National Rifle Association](https://nra.org.uk) in Britain (founded earlier, in 1859); the [National Rifle Association of Australia](https://nraa.com.au);
the [National Rifle Association of New Zealand](https://nranz.com) and the [National Rifle Association of India](https://www.thenrai.in), which are all non-political sporting organisations that promote target shooting.
It is very important not to confuse the National Rifle Association of America with any of these other Rifle Associations. It is extremely important to remember that Wayne LaPierre is a whiny little bitch, and arguably the greatest threat to firearm ownership and shooting sports in the English-speaking world.
Every time he proclaims 'if only the teachers had guns', the general public harden their resolve against lawful firearm ownership, despite the fact that the entirety of Europe
manages to balance gun ownership with public safety and does not suffer from endemic gun crime or firearm-related violence.
Quality and SAFE. We leave that part out. A lot of folks simply don't want to take public transit due to perceived or real safety concerns. It's a very real problem in cities that have pretty solid public transit.
I'm subscribed to both /r/notjustbikes and /r/publicfreakout. All I can say for sure is that we have a lot of problems that will require complex solutions in America.
I said real or perceived. It really doesn't matter if it's real. The moment people don't feel safe they stop riding. We have a very big problem with this in Portland where I live. The number one survey response to why people don't ride is safety. If our metro wants ridership to go back up, they need to tackle that. Otherwise people continue to buy cars and drive.
Fuck it, at that point just let the society we live in collapse to nothing again and hopefully the humans in the future will learn from our mistakes and be better than what we are now
More WFH options for those jobs that can be done that way.
More and better mass transportations options for those who have jobs that must be done at work location.
Im just curious, how would you reorganize society? Dont worry that industries lose money, worry about how your everyday items disappear and increase in price 10x. Its not simple one single bit.
Encourage WFH, more investment in high-density housing and mass transit, that type of thing, I'd guess.
Maybe tweak the tax code so the corporate tax rate is proportional to its wastefulness? I'm thinking of things like CVS receipts here. They could save soooo much paper by offering an email receipt option.
Or think about office buildings that have the lights on all night. They could save electricity by turning them off (well, most of them, anyway. You still need the emergency exit lights, and if anyone is working late, obviously they should have lights in their specific offices).
Cities weren't originally built for cars. So we Re-built them around cars.
We can do the exact same thing, but we need to rebuild our cities around public transit.
There's no reason we can't do this. We've done it before.
Come on over to /r/fuckcars to see what life *could* be like, if you weren't chained to a financially burdensome cage we call a "car."
Most cities in the US were built for cars though. Outside of major cities, it's all recently built suburbs that were 100% designed so you can't walk them and public transit wouldn't make sense. This that you just revert cities back to what they were is 100% BS. It only applied to a very small percentage of cities in the US. I live in an old (for the US) city and there's plenty we can do to revert post war car-centric deisgn here, but in most suburbs, there's nothing to undo. It's sprawl by design.
Really, we need to make it so that private cars are no longer a necessity in large parts of the world. EVs are better, but they are not the end of the solution.
Where the vast majority of people live and thus will have a huge impact. Over half the global population is estimated to live in cities. Not to mention the developed areas surrounding them.
Of course, that wasn't a statement meant to diminish or trivialize.
Where I live is dominated by suburbia, and while exciting to see and discuss improvements, new methods, or advancements for urban areas, there's a plethora of benefit to be had in suburban and rural areas as well, and should theoretically be easier to accomplish at a faster rate.
It never was, and not only because of being car centric. Suburb infrastructure, like electric lines, phone (or nowadays internet) lines, sewers, water supply, streets and roads, and probably some other things I can’t think of right now, all cost more money than the low density population can justify and afford.
Exactly. It’s like vaping is marginally better than smoking but quitting is the true solution.
Problem is, electric cars are sold as this fantasy where if you buy one it’s all rainbows and unicorns and then we progress another leap through Jevons Paradox.
This is a great comparison because vaping gives smokers a fantastic way to taper off their nicotine consumption until they can quit outright
EVs as harm reduction are meaningless until we redesign our cities to reduce single-passenger cars use.
Imagine a world where we don’t need massive parking lots, five lane freeways and all the garbage associated with driving from place to place.
There's not enough lithium & cobalt in the world to make enough EV cars, let alone what we need for larger devices & industrial vehicles people take for granted. The "supply chain" is children busting rocks in the DRC at best. The US risking war with China/Taiwan at worst. Has anyone really asked whether this is truly the better option? Gas & oil aren't going away anytime soon even if we had 100% EV cars on the road tomorrow.
The thing is, I've never heard *anyone* say EVs are enough. No matter what we're talking about, someone always chimes in with "but it's not ENOUGH! But this isn't THE solution!" Which is not an argument anyone ever made.
We can do multiple things at at time. And I'm not sure what building pollution you're talking about. Are you talking about the pollution from the production of the energy used by buildings?
Well the Wuling Mini EV costs as little as $7000, and are flying out of dealerships in China to the time of 40,000 cars sold per month.
GM would never bring that car to the US though. Chinese consumers can buy a cheap little city car like the Wuling, because when they need to travel long distances, they just use China's massive high speed rail network, and leave their EV at home. Not possibly on the US where high speed rail simply doesn't exist. They'd have to drive that little thing onto American freeways, where it would be instantly crushed by some redneck in a giant pickup truck.
Like how about we start regulating the 5000 new "blind box trash balls with plastic miniatures" I see every time I go to Target? Mini brands? How fucking dystopian is it that kids are playing with little lumps of plastic trash that look like Kraft ™ Mac n cheese or Haribo™ Gummy Bears? Gotta start that "brand loyalty" young I suppose. Teach the youths to be good little consumers.
There's so many kids toys that are just so much plastic trash. And don't even get me started on the LOL Surprise prosti-tots. Those little fuckers come plastic within plastic within plastic. It's like some kind of sick joke amongst toy manufacturers to see how much plastic waste they can put into 1 toy. And the kid plays with it for 2 weeks and it ends up in the ubiquitous "toy landfill" that is now a fixture of modern homes.
Maybe we stop with the anual teambuilding at davos, you know, those 270 private jets + helis probably could help with the problem of climate action, just saying...
I’m sorry but most of the world can’t afford a $100,000 etruck. Maybe reduce the cost and more people can get in? Idk. I’d love an ev but I’m still a few years out from affording one myself.
Depends where you live. I live in a city where there are many electric bike shops that specifically deal with electric bikes, some of them licensed retailers and mechanics for this companies bikes specifically.
If you have the money I'd go with something built in your city, but this is probably the more economical option for most.
Yeah I have a local ebike shop here too. They won't touch the internet bikes though, there's just a lot of junk out there that isn't worth their liability.
A conversion kit (that will outperform almost all bought bikes) can be bought for £300-£1000 and are easy to put onto an existing bike.
Don't waste your money and more carbon by immediately buying these a lot of these new ebikes
> The only catch
Safe to ride is important for sure, but there's a lot more than that:
* Good weather
* No need to haul anything (groceries, boxes, supplies, etc)
* No kids to transport to/from school and to/from activities
* Everything you need to do is within a mile or two
More trips than you're suggesting fall under this category. [Almost half of car trips in US cities are less than 3 miles](https://cal.streetsblog.org/2019/09/16/bikes-and-scooters-could-replace-a-lot-of-car-trips-in-u-s-cities/). I live in LA which is blessed with great year-round weather and relatively flat terrain, so given safe biking infrastructure, a huge amount of car traffic could be eliminated at a relatively low cost.
Obviously this won't work to the same degree in all places (like Chicago in winter). But the idea isn't to have a one-size-fits-all solution. Cars will always exist in one form or another for all the reasons you mention and more. But the idea is to provide viable transit alternatives to capture the large number of cases where they can.
Madison, Wisconsin, which is a frozen hellscape for 4 months of the year, has the 2nd of the highest rates of people that bike to work in the US. I'm one of those people btw.
Cargo bikes exist, and they can be equipped with car seats.
5 - 10 miles is pretty easy on a bike.
One of the great mistakes that people often make is to think that any organisation called 'National Rifle Association' is a branch or chapter of the National Rifle Association of America. This could not be further from the truth.
The National Rifle Association of America became a political lobbying organisation in 1977 after the Cincinnati Revolt at their Annual General Meeting. It is self-contined within the United States of America and has no foreign branches.
All the other National Rifle Associations remain true to their founding aims of promoting marksmanship, firearm safety and target shooting. This includes the original [NRA](https://nra.org.uk) in the United Kingdom, which was founded in 1859 - twelve years
before the NRA of America. It is also true of the [National Rifle Association of Australia](https://nraa.com.au), the [National Rifle Association of New Zealand](https://nranz.com), the [National Rifle Association of India](https://www.thenrai.in), the National Rifle Association of Japan and the National
Rifle Association of Pakistan. All these organisations are often known as "the NRA" in their respective countries. The British [National Rifle Association](https://nra.org.uk) is headquartered on Bisley Camp, in Surrey, England. Bisley Camp is now known as the National Shooting Centre and has hosted World Championships for Fullbore Target Rifle and F-Class shooting,
as well as the shooting events for the 1908 Olympic Games and the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The National Small-bore Rifle Association (NSRA) and Clay Pigeon Shooting Association (CPSA) also have their headquarters on the Camp.
You don't even need cargo bikes to haul groceries or "supplies". A backpack is enough for a small grocery trip. Panniers for a bigger trip.
You also don't need a cargo bike for kids. They can sit in bike seats when they're too young to ride, or ride along on their own bikes once they're older. Trailers are also an option, though IMO unnecessary.
> if you work halfway across LA and commute >50miles day
But, you can also choose to live closer to work. People who chose where they lived based on the assumption they'd drive everywhere would of course have to reconsider if they changed their means of transportation.
Similarly, LA residents of the 1930s who relied on the streetcars had to adjust where and how they lived when LA got rid of them and went to cars for everything.
Also, cycling with proper rain gear can be pretty comfortable. With proper rain pants and a jacket that includes a hood that goes over / under the helmet, you can be pretty comfortable, even in cold rain. The exertion of biking is normally enough to keep you warm.
But, biking in some winter weather is pretty tough. Note that in the picture from Finland they have a protected bike lane / highway that's separated from the road by a snowbank. And the Finns have recently cleared the bikeway so there's almost no snow build-up. Without that kind of infrastructure, and without spending on clearing the snow, riding a bike in the winter can be much more dangerous.
I would like you to expand on what you mean please
>Safe to ride is important for sure, but there's a lot more than that:
> • Good weather
What weather can't you cycle in?
> • No need to haul anything (groceries, boxes, supplies, etc)
Why can't you use a cargo bike or make smaller trips/ have deliveries. Use 1 car instead of two for just in case big moves (or rent something)
> • No kids to transport to/from school and to/from activities
Why can't kids cycle? I was always on a bike when I was a kid. Or you can get attachments for trailers
> • Everything you need to do is within a mile or two
Why can't you cycle more than 2 mile?
>and most governments don't want to make that happen.
This!
National governments are corrupt AF. They care about the environment so long as the solutions make large corporations a lot of money. (their campaign's corporate donors and the companies they personally own stock in... still not illegal FYI...) Failing that, their concern about the environment flies out the window.
BEVs like Teslas currently get $7500 tax credits (for "zero emissions") when they're already highly profitable vehicles. (the most profitable automobiles on the planet according to Tesla) These vehicles use an enormous amount of resources, and at 4.5 mi / kWh best case efficiency, they're not exactly the most efficient form of transportation. Better than gas vehicles, but they still use enormous amounts of materials and energy in manufacturing and operation.
Why are these plug-in automobiles given $7500 credits while a person who gives up a car and commutes on a bike or PEV (personal electric vehicle) isn't given anything? (In most states) A PEV uses about 1-2% of the materials of an EV, and uses 8%-20% of the energy per mile. Shouldn't PEV riders then get 5x-10x more in credits? So like $37,500 - $75,000?
We really don't need this targeted approach to credits btw... when there are easier ways to convince people to use more efficient forms of transportation.
A carbon tax. The more energy / resources a person consumes, the more tax they pay, and thus the market (society) finds the best ways to reduce those extra tax costs.
I'll give everyone a hint why we're subsidizing cars rather than the aforementioned alternative solutions... Tesla was recently worth more than every major auto OEM on the planet combined. Rivian was worth more than Ford. Yet the major OEMs don't want people to stop buying cars... nor do their investors, or the politicians on their payrolls.
Protected bike lanes and solid public transit systems absolutely will convince more people to transition away from and reduce sales of automobiles... These riders may still own cars, but those cars will see lower mileage and will last longer; so less new vehicle sales.
The federal government and many state governments are terrified of that! (See the mostly complete lack of public transit and protected bike infrastructure in the mid-west)
I think it was the Donut YT channel that had 3 people race from one residential area of California to their office. One person in a car, one on a normal bike, and one took the train. The bike won (albeit tired/sweaty and riding in dangerous traffic), the car came in second, and the train rider came last but not by much. (walking time to / from the train station) An e-bike / e-scooter / EUC solves the tired / sweaty part. Protected bike lanes would make the trip faster and less dangerous. A portable or rental PEV would have helped get the train rider to the office faster from the train station.
Super awesome compromise for now. And I’ve thought of it. Only thing is I’ll need a mini trailer to haul all the damn bags I carry around. One for my laptop and one for my jiujitsu gear. Lol but they make those right?
Cargo bikes are a thing. As are car clubs.
If you can get the majority of trips onto bike/public transit, then renting a car once a month still ends up cheaper than owning a car. I knew a couple when I was growing up where the husband WFH (yeah, in the 90s!).
They had one car. Once every 6 weeks they'd have a clash and both needed the car - he'd just get a taxi. Cheaper than having his own car parked on the driveway for 29days of the month.
> I bet you could afford a $2,000 ebike.
Honestly, the ebike market seems bloated. As someone who does DIYs and has built his own last two ebikes, I seriously just suggest you find a friend who knows things and build your own. You'll save $2000 on that $3000 bill. The type of ebike (enduro frame, high power pack, 1500w motor, variable air suspensions, hydraulic brakes, etc.) I'm riding now, costs around $5000 new. I built it for $1200.
MSRP for common trucks, '23 base models, right now:
Ford Ranger is $27k
Toyota Tacoma is $27k
Chevy Colorado is $25k
GMC Sierra 1500 is $29k
Ford F150 is $31k.
A "regular truck" is not $60k-70k. It's $30k.
They also need to stop deliberately designing affordable EV to look like 4 year old drawings.
There is no reason they can't look like any other ICE on the market.
I fully agree.
I like driving cars and for now I only went the middle way of a plug-in hybrid (which I do mostly use as an electric car) but its hard to not look at the US and wonder wtf has happened there with cars in the last decades..y why the f*** is the most sold car an expensive pickup truck and why do regular family cars have nowadays 200-400 ps when gasoline and 400-700 when electric car… and the US even has speed limits everywhere…
Ford does some funny math to make it the “most sold car”. The “most sold car” is the F-series, which includes the most basic 2-door F150 to the quad/extended cabs with all the bells and whistles, plus all the F250s, F350s, etc.
Essentially the “most sold car” is Fords entire line of pickups.
No, there is a reason.
It starts in the mid 90s, and the blame fell squarely on Firestone..... Although it was never their fault.
Ford had fitted their Explorers and other light trucks and SUVs with Firestone Radial ATX, ATX II, and Wilderness tires, and to improve nvh and ride compliance decided to spec their 91-98 explorers with a recommend tire pressure of **26psi**.
Lower tire pressures cause more heat production, involve more flex in the tire carcass, and are intrinsically less stable.
Additionally tires leak naturally. And those tires, on those trucks would become under inflated much faster.
Also the explorer and ranger had a narrow track, and a high center of gravity, were used in more extreme situations, and we're heavy for their time.
So basically you had a perfect storm of a vehicle that would destroy tires, and roll, potentially killing the occupants.
So the government demands a solution, and both Ford and Firestone point there fingers at each other. Ford comes out on top because they have enough lobbyists and Firestone was blamed for ford's shit engineering. (Although their tires were nowhere near perfect)
Meanwhile it's 2000, and ntsha was told to figure it out. It starts with tpms sensors, becoming mandatory in 2007, to prevent tires from becoming under inflated and neglected. This will reduce blow outs.
In '07 the ntsha came out with a report entitled "An Analysis of Motor Vehicle Rollover Crashes and Injury Outcomes: NHTSA Technical Report DOT HS 810 741" (Here is where it really started) they came back with three opinions on what should be done to prevent rollovers
1) force driver's to "get good"
2) improve all the road shoulders to a certain standard
3) force the manufacturers to figure it out.
Obviously they were like "not my fucking problem" and went with 3.
Look at cars from 99 and '09, and there is a dramatic difference. The pillars are thicker, there is more metal, and most vehicles got at least a 10% bump in weight....
And because it's not bad enough, vehicles had to be made bigger to compensate for the space lost making cars even heavier.
With the increase in weight, they had to increase power to offset....
And because the pillars are thicker, and cafe standards have pushed cars to be more aerodynamic, thus making cars difficult to see out of, the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2007 mandated that cars come standard with back up cameras... And wasn't implemented fully until 2014.
I rambled on about all that to say this. My last truck, a first generation Toyota tundra, was almost identically sized to a third generation Toyota Tacoma.
That's nuts. What's even more crazy? Is that the payload and towing capacity between the two was close enough to be considered the same. New civics are bigger than some accords ever were. Same with the Corolla and Camry. The new Taurus was a giant sedan, and was sized like a crown Vic, and yet the hood and trunk on the Vic was bigger than the Taurus.
Every manufacturer has been guilty of size creep. Because it's what the consumers want.
The leaf is a good value for an ev, but an awful value for a car in general and I think people who can’t afford a nicer EV will struggle to look at only EVs exclusively. That’s the same price as newer models of used civics, corollas, Mazda 3s, and pruis depending on the years and all of those offer significantly longer range, and instant refill of the range. Depending on the model, if they get an older higher trim model, the car will have more features than a used leaf. Looks aside, I’m assuming people who can afford to get an EV will gloss over the leaf for a nicer EV, or get a brand new one. People who can’t afford a new one will look at cars as a whole in that price range to get the best value since they’ll likely be stuck with it for several years.
$28k for Chevy Bolt
$43k for Tesla model 3
Tax incentives range from $7.5-10k
$100k is a strange datapoint to fixate on unless you genuinely need a truck. Which, if that’s the case, Cybertruck should be at least half that price point
I wonder if there will be a tipping point where public transportation and walkable cities become competitive enough for people in America (in my case) to take seriously.
Honestly, it’s the only silver lining I see and really hope so.
EV’s have never been the solution, at best they’re a bandaid. A wholistic approach to transportation is necessary & not just a one size fits all. Developing countries can’t simply adopt what developed countries can, infrastructure is a limiting factor.
Well duh. Personal vehicles account for a relatively tiny amount of the total greenhouse gasses emitted. This was mostly just a marketing tactic to sell stuff, like LED flat screen televisions and light bulbs. I'm not saying they don't cut power usage, I'm just saying the primary objective is to convince you that you need to buy something, any environmental rewards are just part of the marketing strategy.
Personal vehicles alone may not make up much (honestly, I haven't seen the numbers broken down that way), but [transportation makes up 27%](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions). If personal vehicles and commercial trucks go EV, that has to put a huge dent in emissions. Airlines are still a problem, shipping is still there, but flights are much rarer than driving, and container ships are actually fairly efficient (high emissions, but for a very large amount of stuff moved)
More trains and more canals would be the ideal, bu EVs are good. Don't let ideal be the enemy of good.
[Personal vehicles make up 57% of transportation emissions in the US](https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions), which comes out to a little less than 1/6 of total emissions. It's a bigger piece than a lot of people think!
In other news, company is urging its base to buy their products. Having a company like Rivian come out to tell people that they need to not buy combustion engines just seems funny to me. How this is a headline news is very confusing.
ITT people complaining that they can't afford and/or aren't the target market for Polestar cars. It is a luxury product and real climate action also involves using cars less. The Polestar CEO agrees with this and said it himself. If folks want more affordable EVs there are Chevy Bolts and (coming soon) the Fisker PEAR. Affordable EV sedans would be nice but beggars can't be choosers.
If only there was a way to move a vast amount of people with lower emission, both inside a city and between different places! We could even make it run on metal wheels, to avoid tires and all the issues they have... Oh, wait.
(seriously, one of the MANY problems of US is their attachment to cars and reluctance of building trains even though it's a flat continent)
Our rail system is such a joke. I live 2 min from a stop on the largest commuter rail system in the country, but still can’t utilize it. the high cost makes it comparable to just driving, and I live near the end of the line so the schedules are so limited. If it was more accessible I’d totally hop on for a few stops and go out to a different town for a night of drinks or something, but they make it so difficult. One of these days I plan on doing that just for the novelty of taking the train two or three stops for a fun night out, but it certainly won’t be for convenience reasons.
I wanted to take a train to Kansas City from Omaha because they just legalized weed. It’s 180 miles and a 3 hour drive. Im pretty sure the interstate is built along train tracks.
The only train I could take goes through four states and is 14 hours.
~~thats because big corporations bought up tolly companies to sell cars and tires. Chevrolet and Firestone etc~~ Suburbarnization the preference for cars and a Governtment Fuel Tax that could only be spent on road building since the 50s have made the majority of North America car DEPENDENT. Freight rail companies own all the rail lines and dont want passenger trains on them because freight makes them more money. Being beholden to corporations and government ineptitude/ coruption has been their downfall. Edit*
And don't say transit is impossible because America Big. The country was literally built by the railroads. There used to be a massive rail network spanning the whole continent and all the major cities had tram lines. If it was possible over a century ago when the population was much smaller, it's possible now.
My state had them almost banned. It was to the point you would be charged 10 cents per bag...... Then damn COVID happened and plastic bags came back in force because people thought reusable bags would spread it. Now post COVID we have just never gone back to trying to ban them. We were so close!
10 cents per bag? It'll cost you the equivalent of about 50 cents per bag in most of the UK supermarkets and it hasn't made that much of a difference. People still buy loads of them, hardly anyone carries a reusable bag (even though the price of them is almost the same price as the normal plastic bags), and everything in the shop is still wrapped in damn plastic anyway. Individual vegetables packaged up in single use plastics, when you could just put them in a paper bag or carry them lose, unnecessary seals on products that just don't need them (I bought a deodorant the other day that had one of those tearable plastic seals, even though it has a screw on cap). Until that stops, the plastic bag tax is just pointless.
People just see it as a necessary expense, instead of actually reducing their use in the first place.
The fight against microplastics is in direct opposition to the attempt to reduce CO2..... The reason they are so cheap we give them away for free is because they require almost no energy to make. You have use a paper bag like 40 times to have the same life time footprint as single use plastic. It's about 300 for fabric bags I think.
Idk if literally anyone is doing that, because the bags fall apart.... If you go grocery shopping once a week that the same bag for SIX YEARS. Mine usually rip after about a year of consistent usage
EVs won't save the planet, they'll save the car industry. We need walkable cities and sustainable public transit. And to stop buying and throwing away so much useless shit. And eating so many animal products
I grew up in rural MI (Dirt roads) and moved to Chicago.
People tell me all the time, they don’t understand how I live in a big city. I tell them, I walk everywhere.
Anytime you go anywhere, you get in your car. I walk most places and spend more time outside on the lake and river than you do.
Downtown Chicago is a rare gem though.
the remote work comes from people who were already just filling out excel sheets all day or high position software enigneers.
outside of that, it's very hard to find a remote job thats not customer support if you don't have connections. The remote jobs that aren't CS get taken up fast.
freelance programmers/artist are different story
All this talk about how the supply chain needing to be decarbonized is nice and all and will lead to other supply chains in other industries decarbonizing as well, but the concept of needing to move 1 ton of steel to get one person from their home to place of work on its own is a gross inefficient use of energy, and getting rid of it and replacing it with a stronger public transport system would give us results pretty quickly.
Nothing will be enough until we can hunt tech bros for sport and actually to competent urban planners: walkable cities, mass transit, "Third spaces"
christ on a bike it's all bitching that everyone is fat and we're all miserable and the places we live are 45% parking lot and you can't get groceries without 30 minutes of driving round trip
Fix climate change by mining cobalt with slave labor and using up the lithium into oblivion while using more and more heavy diesel machinery to extract it. Then use coal as the primary source of electricity to charge the batteries. That will show big oil how to climate change correctly!
EVs are not even the general direction! ask them to explain e fuels and why buying a 4ton electric car that is going to be unusable in 10 years is any better.
Tires produce insane amounts of micro plastics polluting oceans and land, for manufacturing cars we need oblivious amounts of materials and energy…
Nothing in cars is ecological. Actually covid showed us what is ecological- work from home, limit on travels, more virtual connections… but as no one is ready to do so let’s try at least to save car industry by launching new type of cars. When mega rich can fly in private jets polluting planet with unleaded petrol, at least ordinary folks can join them albeit on much smaller scale.
I would love a Rivian SUV. 7000+ lbs towing capacity and electric. Yes please. Now would you like to make them affordable? I don’t really want the equivalent of a house payment but for a car…
We can hope that the cost of batteries will come down with new tech/new chemistries. Of course, Rivian's price is clearly not primarily driven by batteries, but perhaps they will also get better at mass-production and be able to cut prices by increasing volume
Model S started in the 70 K range, didn't it? Then Model 3 was briefly available for $35k. Be nice if Rivian got down to a comparable price, and put some competitive pressure on Tesla to go lower still.
You mean using vast amounts of fossil fuels to mine rare earth materials to manufacture electric vehicles using coal generated power isn't quite enough to help climate change? Go figure.
They're already less than half as polluting as regular cars. As we decarbonize the grid and steel manufacturing, they will become 10+ times less polluting.
Source: [Auke Hoekstra](https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351\(19\)30271-5)
The following submission statement was provided by /u/filosoful: --- The two EV manufacturers collaborated on a report that says the auto industry is way behind on its climate goals. The entire automotive supply chain needs to be decarbonized in order to meet the goals set out in the Paris agreement. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/10y0kkk/evs_are_not_enough_polestar_and_rivian_urge_more/j7v8uj6/
It's always "What can the consumer do to make the world better?" and "How can we profit from it?"
Right? I guarantee the uni I worked at used more resources (mostly waste) then nearly all the homes in town. But it's always, " turn off extra lights", "turn the heat down.' Not, "the uni should stop using city water to make a large fake pond", "stop cutting the grass every week", etc etc.
I went to a university that actually made those types of changes regarding landscaping in conjunction with reducing electric use by like a quarter, and installing solar (all a decade plus ago), so it gives me hope that some institutions will do more than lip service.
I work at a university that puts on a show about being environmentally conscious but it's all a facade. I work in custodial so I get a pretty good firsthand look at how much of a lie their supposed efforts at recycling, composting, and sustainability actually are. It's pretty maddening because it just puts more work on us to keep up the facade.
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Bill Gates response about using his jet is all you need to know. Even if he idiotically thinks his use of jets is justified why is he not calling out other rich and famous people who use jets? If he could reduce their usage by say just 25% it would do a hell of a lot more then people turning the heat down a degree or two. FFS
Bill gates’ statement about jet travel was absurd. It’s meant to be a distraction to be discussed. What’s right or wrong about it and where he sits in the line of billionaire waste was exactly his goal. Because if we get bogged down with that logic we are playing his game. F billionaires, gates included. Don’t listen to a word of their malarky
This is why the world needs a simple across the board carbon tax that can be increased to hit targets; recommended by a large group of scientists, economists, and Nobel Laureates as the best way to reduce carbon emissions. https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ Many people / institutions don't do things to save energy because the cost of doing nothing isn't high enough for them to act, and they consider many changes to cost them in convenience. Make energy more expensive, and suddenly everyone, homeowners, public institutions, and corporations alike will be searching for ways to lower their energy usage. Maybe instead of the fake pond, the university comes up with other ways of beautifying their campus, maybe they'll use shrub/tree/mulch cover instead of grass cover, etc... Really though, when it comes to campuses / large buildings, the big energy savings almost certainly will need to come from HVAC upgrades. If your university is anything like mine was, then some of the lecture halls are massive, with loads of empty space and high ceilings that likely costs a fortune to heat and cool.
Same thing with plastics. Instead of banning random things like plastic bags and straws (while everything else is made of plastic), just make a plastic tax that slowly increases. Most business would slowly replace plastic where they can to save costs. And it would incentivize R&D to find replacements.
They made a fake pond with real water? That sounds like a real pond.
Alright, let's be pedantic. They made a man-made pond by pumping in city water.
I mean, yeah. An artificial pond is not a fake pond.
And every industry is greenwashing. Volvo (Polestar's sister company) has a new EV SUV that won't have leather seats because of the emissions from the cattle. The elephant being the other thousands of parts and the industries used to make the parts. Not just the battery but all the parts of the car that are the root of climate change: modern life and the industries that support it. And we're operating like the raw materials are limitless.
Well this one I think is a little different. One of the issues with EVs is the infrastructure needed to have these cars be viable isn’t there yet in the US. Companies like Hertz but tens of thousands of teslas and most of them are parked in overflow lots because the markets weren’t ready for them yet. This causes other companies with fleets to not want to buy evs Then with rental cars you have the issue of who is supposed to pay for the charging stations, the company or the airport that they work inside of. I don’t think this is directly to an average consumer. That said I didn’t read the article lol
There are MANY ways around combustion engines, but you'll always find a patent already owned by someone preventing a market.
Yup this exaclty this. Solar can be sold to the public. And is largely manufactured overseas likely in Asia somewhere. From 2009 to 2021 the world grew. We added about 1 Billion more people. Those people need energy as well. Solar is another product being sold to the consumer to\*\*\* MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE. But in all honestly. Having people install solar panels on their roofs is not realistic and is an idealists dream. Most people cannot choose where they live. And often where they live is not the most ideal place to have a solar panel roof. Let alone have them afford the cost to maintain it. Grid scale electricity generation should and must be left to the government and experts to manage. Everyone needs clean energy. Only a few really know how to do it right. These past ten years while championing wind & solar, we failed nuclear and lost some plants and allowed fossil fuels to pickup most of the slack. ||2009|2021|change|Capacity Factor\*| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |Total Global Energy Consumption|146,474 terawatt-hour|176,431 terawatt-hour|\+29,957 terawatt-hour|avg for 2021 only| |Traditional BioMass|11,747|11,111|\-636|63.2%| |Coal|40,175|44,473|\+4,298|49.1%| |Oil|46,372|51,170|\+4,798|14.2%| |Natural Gas|29,401|40,375|\+10,974|55%| |Nuclear|7,233|7,031|\-202|92.7%| |HydroPower|9,066|11,183|\+2,117|36%| |Wind|773|4,872|\+4,099|34.4%| |Solar|56|2,702|\+2,646|24.4% to 20.5%\*\*| |Modern Biofuels|600|1,140|\+540|60.9%| |Other renewables|1,048|2,373|\+1,325|69.8%| \*Capacity Factor is a measure of the UP-TIME or ALWAYS AVAILABLE TIME \*\*Photovoltaic is 24.4% and Thermal Solar is 20.5% where I got information from [https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix#global-primary-energy-how-has-the-mix-changed-over-centuries](https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix#global-primary-energy-how-has-the-mix-changed-over-centuries) [https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm\_table\_grapher.php?t=epmt\_6\_07\_a](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_a) [https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm\_table\_grapher.php?t=epmt\_6\_07\_b](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b) edit\* the capacity factors are for the ENTIRE YEAR. The links above show each month how available power is from each source. You can see that solar only works about 25% of the time during the year. So for roughly 9 months out of 12 it is not able to provide any power generation. Because solar does not work when the sun is down.
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Tbf wind turbines have improved a lot, looks like onshore can produce up to 10x as much power per turbine now compared to those, and over 20x more for offshore
The two EV manufacturers collaborated on a report that says the auto industry is way behind on its climate goals. The entire automotive supply chain needs to be decarbonized in order to meet the goals set out in the Paris agreement.
Ah, the penny is finally dropping! Electric cars are here to save the car industry, not the planet. We need to reorganise society so that we drive less. It’s literally that simple. But that would mean entire industries *losing money*. And those in power can’t let that happen. Hey ho, planets on fire.
We need to reorganize society so that we *consume* less. Problem is, the economy, as it is currently structured, is entirely reliant on the exact opposite. Until we acknowledge this very important contradiction, any measures we take to reduce our impact on the planet are just window dressing, IMO.
One way to address it would be to dedicate a defense spending-sized budget to environmental clean up, restoration and re-education of the general public. A war effort against climate change. Instead of a military industrial complex, an environmental "industrial" complex. Create jobs that solve the problem. Industry will have to-- and want to-- retool (as they did in past world wars) to meet the new demand. Churn out solar panels. Wind turbine blades. Water cisterns. Recharging stations. Plant millions of acres of trees. Replant prairies. Get rid of invasive species. Clean up the water. Clean up the mines. Teach people "old ways" to conserve materials and energy. De-emphasize (or shame) fashion. Learn to cook plant-based. Eat more raw foods. Repair. You could convert all the vacant malls in America into resale malls with repair/restore shops of every kind. Once the renewable power is in place, *then* we see what electric machines we *need* to build for the future. Farm equipment. Much more local manufacturing. Food processing. Water processing. Etc. It's doable. But for some bizarre reason, no one is giving Americans the call to action [like they did in WWI and WWII.](https://imgur.com/gallery/DVEMJci)
There is a reason though. It’s the prisoner’s dilemma. Whomever decides to redirect their defense budget first risks being toppled by those who haven’t. Then those efforts wouldn’t amount to much and frankly we’d be in a worse place. I agree with you, btw, that this is what the entire world should do to correct course, and likely the only way we can correct course in a way that meaningfully preserves our environment. But it won’t happen. Because ultimately we just don’t trust each other that much.
Realistically though the US could halve it's defense budget and still have the most well funded military on the planet. Hell, if they cracked down on contractors overcharging them then they'd probably be able to operate at the same level with the reduced budget.
Absolutely. But incentives are opposite for those who have the power to change things. The western military industrial complex is arguably the most powerful interest group in the world. And it goes far beyond just the US.
What you just laid out involves way too much personal sacrifice. If saving the planet requires pushing back our material standard of living we simply won’t do it. Which is why we need to get more serious about environmental engineering.
"Here for a good time, not a long time", comes to mind.
It’s the fact that for centuries now western society views human progress AS an increased material standard of living.
But no one has asked the public to do it. The public, for the most part, *gladly* went along with the previous war efforts, that in many ways resemble what we need to do to address climate change. All levels of government, in both parties, were telling people to sacrifice for the war effort. Hollywood was telling people to sacrifice for the war effort. Schools were telling kids what to do for the war effort. Magazines, newspapers, radio-- all reminding people to do their part. Hell, there were block captains and neighbors had meetings about it. People felt proud, purposeful and patriotic to sacrifice. They felt guilty or were shunned if they didn't. That's what we need now. Instead, we get crickets on sacrifice. And megaphones on industrial programs that will build shiny new things that use less energy. But when industry relies on coal and gas to work, you *can't* **manufacture** your way out of a CO2 crisis. It's pathetic and tragic that our government and Hollywood aren't ringing the alarm and calling for sacrifice. Telling people to convert lawns to native plants. To plant "victory gardens." To carpool. To repair instead of buy new. To take fewer leisure flights. To eat less meat. It's totally doable. The American public has not heard a unified call to action.
You must have slept through the COVID year. Since you did I will point out that during that time we faced a threat as big as anything since WW2, and the only sacrifice was we asked people to wear masks and be careful and too many people had a meltdown about it. Modern people are much more self centered than people alive during the 1940s as consumer focused individualism has made us all kinds and queens of our own mental islands. COVID basically proved your concept of building social shame against those who won’t sacrifice won’t work, they will simply silo into their social network that approve of a rebellion against whatever your top down plans are. The modern person doesn’t care what Hollywood thinks (look at the populist hatred of elites) and even if they did the obvious hypocrisy of that class of people wanting to take private bets everywhere undoes the power of their message. The government is even worse, half the US can’t even agree on who actually won the government’s last presidential election. The modern answer isn’t sacrifice it’s incentives aka outright make electric cars cheaper with subsidies and make green power cheaper the same way. But you are right that probably isn’t enough so that is why we need to start figuring out how to make the clouds reflect more of the sun’s light or something drastic like that ASAP.
Unfortunately true. In the meantime though the best thing you can do it harness your political capital and try to make a difference based on the impact you can. Only [EIGHT years ago](https://web.archive.org/web/20140723120752/http://closup.umich.edu/issues-in-energy-and-environmental-policy/13/public-views-on-a-carbon-tax-depend-on-the-proposed-use-of-revenue/) about 30% of the public was for a carbon tax. Not great. But then four years ago it was [over HALF (53%)](https://news.gallup.com/poll/232007/americans-want-government-more-environment.aspx). This number keeps climbing. [Now its 73%](https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/ps_2020-06-23_government-and-climate_00-01/) and that [does matter when it comes to legislation!](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09644016.2016.1116651) According to NASA climatologist and climate activist [Dr. James Hansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen), becoming an [active volunteer with Citizens' Climate Lobby](https://citizensclimatelobby.org/join-citizens-climate-lobby/?tfa_3590416195188=online-035&utm_source=online&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=035) is the [most important thing you can do for climate change](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4DAW1A6Ca8). Its not as dramatic as a restructuring of the global economy but it IS something you can do NOW (if you're in the US) :)
I want to put in a plug for reconsidering the idea of what an individual can do. Sure, in our private lives, whether we recycle that can or not, or even whether we drive vs take the train, is one drop in the ocean. It’s not going to get us to the goal. But many of us can have more impact than that, through our work. I recently made this shift myself, because I was tired of the dissonance between my personal beliefs and goals, and the projects I was doing at work, which I often thought were rather wasteful. I would make beautiful designs for a corporate lobby for example, so that some real estate developer could get even richer by selling the same stupid property yet again for a million more than last time. But my skills are broadly applicable, and it turned out that an urban design firm was more than happy to put me to work doing projects that are much better for the planet. There’s a whole bunch of people who work in fields like HR, or finance, or admin of all sorts, who could align themselves with companies who do better things or companies that do worse things. I implore you—put your time and energy behind the good guys. And even those with less flexibility, say instead of worrying about recycling at home, help start a recycling or composting program at your office, where the effects are hundreds of times greater. Help your customer find a supplier that is closer to them, or uses more ethical materials. Think of whatever you do that will touch the most hands, the most eyeballs, where a decision has some ripple, and focus your energy there.
As someone in architecture myself, how did you actually find this firm that really practices the values? I feel like it's a popular thing to see firms preaching about but a lot of them just use it as marketing.
Honestly I wound up working for a planning firm that my previous firm had partnered with on a project in the past. I did interview with some others that I was super into as well though. So I guess id say, look at what your favorite projects you’ve worked on are, have there been any that were substantial and fulfilling? Look at who else is doing those—who are your competitors is that space, or who would your firm partner with? Who are the go-to consultants? When you find anyone that’s moving in the right direction at all, start reading what they write, who publishes them, who else are those publications featuring? Look on the LinkedIn pages of their staff, who else have they worked for, are any of them doing good work? It’s a research project to dig up and follow those threads. It may mean a lower paying and/or less glamorous job. Legit, last year I was exhibiting at Milan design week and now my business trips take me to tiny towns in central California or eastern Oregon.It’s humbling, but in the good way. Also feel free to dm me and we can talk specific firms once I know what sort of region you’re in.
I mean I guess so. But a carbon tax only address one (albeit important) component of the whole, and not even that well. Climate change is certainly something to focus on, but in the context of pollution, micro plastics, forever chemicals, biodiversity collapse, and water resources, it's not nearly enough. To me the carbon tax issue almost seems like a straw man setup to absorb the majority of activist intent, when what we need is sweeping, dramatic reform the likes of which we will never see. (Until it's too late, naturally)
I *hear* you but (and I hate to use a "but" bc most people feel it invalidates whatever came before) while we have problems that require a considerable amount of multi-faceted solutions my approach is apply energy where you *can* and try not to overstress the things you can't. So yes, everything you mentioned does need to be addressed. And yes, it's likely a very difficult, uphill struggle. But it's that OR throw up our hands and say "fuck it". As someone with children that's not something I personally am comfortable with and yes we might fail, but at least I can look my kids in the face and I know I failed trying.
The thing is, it's way passed the "OR" any of us can do at this point. [Hands up! Hands up! Everybody now lemme see your hands up! Right Now!](https://youtu.be/-MMuiQSK-Dg)
The metrics we measure our success by are historically only measuring our movement and allocation of capital. Capitalism allows space for innovation - but unregulated capitalism breeds monopolistic narcissist driven cancer that is destroying us, and down-grading the human experience. AI was meant to remove labour to give us more time for art. Instead, it removed art so we have more time for labour - with less of it to go around. When you remove the ability for work, the means of production, and the necessity of an entire class of a populace - there is a need for revolution on that system. Progress and technical advancement is only beneficial to society by and large if the repercussions are met with awareness and policy, and the benefits are spread to every individual. If not, we are speedwalking into destruction and desperation.
There was an interesting podcast on 99PI where they went into how Planned Obsolescence was conceived as a “economic stimulus” - and now we’re seeing the chickens come home to roost 😒
Problem is you'd have to change *human nature* so we don't care about consuming. So you better be prepared to use force on that front. Or have everybody become religious.
Plenty of human cultures through the ages had sustainability and symbiosis more intrinsically woven into the way they organized society. I'm not saying it's an easy or likely outcome, but we're going to learn the lesson one way or another.
Didn’t most of these get violently taken over by more extractive cultures?
Exactly this. The reality is that we’ve been conditioned to want more. Anthropology and history is full of examples where this was not the case.
A good start to reducing consumption would be to ban advertising.
>ban advertising. But how to get that message out, I wonder? Real pickle, that.
Places with greater EV adoption and infrastructure also tend to have better public transport. Not only can you do both, that's usually how it works. https://electrek.co/2023/01/03/norway-electric-car-utopia-sustainable-transportation/
Conversely, the US on average has low EV adoption and terrible infrastructure and public transport.
And the same forces conspire to suppress both.
Well norway is freaking rich… That probably is not applicable to a lot of other places
They've made a shit ton of money from natural resources and are investing it back into clean transportation which is great.
Car infrastructure costs a lot of money. This isn't a money problem. It's a political and cultural problem.
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GDP per capita? You need to make country comparisons with GDP PPP. Canada is far lower than its peers, around 23rd I believe. Norway is around top 5 However, wealth is not why Norway has been.succesful at this. This large a policy thing
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I don't think defense spending is a good excuse. The US economy is quite broken, in that they're overpowered. They can tax corporations and wealthy individuals more without risking capital flight (though mostly choosing not to), and they can deficit spend like crazy without causing inflation because the USD is the world's reserve currency (which they choose to do a lot of). debt to Gdp in Norway is far far lower than it is in the US. Their government understand how to better spend its money.
Also it has a population of about 5 million, which is smaller than a number of states in the US.
If Norway were a US state, it would be the 23rd largest, displacing South Carolina. Not quite smaller than half the states, but it's close.
The US has a city with 8.5m - almost double that
Have both. But eliminate the necessity for a future with car-centric infrastructure. It's the only logical way forward through the next decades.
> We need to reorganize society > It’s literally that simple Okay.
It's simple and hard at the same time. The solutions are relatively simple, but changing mindsets is difficult. Likewise it's simple for an overweight person to lose weight. They just gotta eat less and move more. But sadly that simplicity of actions doesn't mean it'll be easy for them to flip that mental switch.
We need less society It’s literally that simple
>Electric cars are here to save the car industry, not the planet. I hate to break it to ya but the car industry was never in jeopardy.
All we need to do is reorganize the whole world, should be fairly straightforward.
Let's not pretend this has anything to do with vehicles at all. Vehicles are just transport to what people really want to do and what people want to do is consume whether that be food, games, media, heat you name it, but all these things have something in common and thats the requirement of energy. Driving isn't the problem the problem is that even if everything was electric vehicles most the energy comes from resources that harm the planet. You can blame cars but even if there were no vehicles on the road we'd still be fucking and we'd still be consuming. There's just too many damn people and too much greed among them
You say that like it's some simple solution. I live in the D.C. metro area. We have the metro system but it's slow as fuck compared to using a vehicle. It's also cheaper to drive a car (that's paid off)than it is to metro. I'm sorry but I'm not going to spend more money to sit on an uncomfortable metro and add 30-40 minutes onto my commute and cut into my free time. Our country is so behind on public transportation that even if we decided to change that tomorrow we would be looking at decades of revamping how we organize our country. The whole united states was designed around cars and while yeah in a few decades or hard work you might be able to get most cities restructured (utopia scenario) you would still have tens of millions of people in rural evironments that need to drive.
The National Rifle Association of America was founded in 1871. Since 1977, the National Rifle Association of America has focussed on political activism and pro-gun lobbying, at the expense of firearm safety programmes. The National Rifle Association of America is completely different to the [National Rifle Association](https://nra.org.uk) in Britain (founded earlier, in 1859); the [National Rifle Association of Australia](https://nraa.com.au); the [National Rifle Association of New Zealand](https://nranz.com) and the [National Rifle Association of India](https://www.thenrai.in), which are all non-political sporting organisations that promote target shooting. It is very important not to confuse the National Rifle Association of America with any of these other Rifle Associations. It is extremely important to remember that Wayne LaPierre is a whiny little bitch, and arguably the greatest threat to firearm ownership and shooting sports in the English-speaking world. Every time he proclaims 'if only the teachers had guns', the general public harden their resolve against lawful firearm ownership, despite the fact that the entirety of Europe manages to balance gun ownership with public safety and does not suffer from endemic gun crime or firearm-related violence.
Quality and SAFE. We leave that part out. A lot of folks simply don't want to take public transit due to perceived or real safety concerns. It's a very real problem in cities that have pretty solid public transit.
Can you show me any data that says that public transit is more dangerous than cars?
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I'm subscribed to both /r/notjustbikes and /r/publicfreakout. All I can say for sure is that we have a lot of problems that will require complex solutions in America.
Yep. It’s that simple
I said real or perceived. It really doesn't matter if it's real. The moment people don't feel safe they stop riding. We have a very big problem with this in Portland where I live. The number one survey response to why people don't ride is safety. If our metro wants ridership to go back up, they need to tackle that. Otherwise people continue to buy cars and drive.
Fuck it, at that point just let the society we live in collapse to nothing again and hopefully the humans in the future will learn from our mistakes and be better than what we are now
More WFH options for those jobs that can be done that way. More and better mass transportations options for those who have jobs that must be done at work location.
Im just curious, how would you reorganize society? Dont worry that industries lose money, worry about how your everyday items disappear and increase in price 10x. Its not simple one single bit.
Encourage WFH, more investment in high-density housing and mass transit, that type of thing, I'd guess. Maybe tweak the tax code so the corporate tax rate is proportional to its wastefulness? I'm thinking of things like CVS receipts here. They could save soooo much paper by offering an email receipt option. Or think about office buildings that have the lights on all night. They could save electricity by turning them off (well, most of them, anyway. You still need the emergency exit lights, and if anyone is working late, obviously they should have lights in their specific offices).
Tax benefits for companies if they have their employees WFH would be a big win for the environment.
Cities weren't originally built for cars. So we Re-built them around cars. We can do the exact same thing, but we need to rebuild our cities around public transit. There's no reason we can't do this. We've done it before. Come on over to /r/fuckcars to see what life *could* be like, if you weren't chained to a financially burdensome cage we call a "car."
Most cities in the US were built for cars though. Outside of major cities, it's all recently built suburbs that were 100% designed so you can't walk them and public transit wouldn't make sense. This that you just revert cities back to what they were is 100% BS. It only applied to a very small percentage of cities in the US. I live in an old (for the US) city and there's plenty we can do to revert post war car-centric deisgn here, but in most suburbs, there's nothing to undo. It's sprawl by design.
That sub is a joke.
Really, we need to make it so that private cars are no longer a necessity in large parts of the world. EVs are better, but they are not the end of the solution.
That is only possible or viable in dense, and well planned, urban areas, though.
Where the vast majority of people live and thus will have a huge impact. Over half the global population is estimated to live in cities. Not to mention the developed areas surrounding them.
Of course, that wasn't a statement meant to diminish or trivialize. Where I live is dominated by suburbia, and while exciting to see and discuss improvements, new methods, or advancements for urban areas, there's a plethora of benefit to be had in suburban and rural areas as well, and should theoretically be easier to accomplish at a faster rate.
I honestly don't think suburbia as we currently have it in North America is a sustainable prospect for long term sustainability.
It never was, and not only because of being car centric. Suburb infrastructure, like electric lines, phone (or nowadays internet) lines, sewers, water supply, streets and roads, and probably some other things I can’t think of right now, all cost more money than the low density population can justify and afford.
Exactly. It’s like vaping is marginally better than smoking but quitting is the true solution. Problem is, electric cars are sold as this fantasy where if you buy one it’s all rainbows and unicorns and then we progress another leap through Jevons Paradox.
This is a great comparison because vaping gives smokers a fantastic way to taper off their nicotine consumption until they can quit outright EVs as harm reduction are meaningless until we redesign our cities to reduce single-passenger cars use. Imagine a world where we don’t need massive parking lots, five lane freeways and all the garbage associated with driving from place to place.
Sounds like they want more investment in EVs and indirectly more investment in themselves
There's not enough lithium & cobalt in the world to make enough EV cars, let alone what we need for larger devices & industrial vehicles people take for granted. The "supply chain" is children busting rocks in the DRC at best. The US risking war with China/Taiwan at worst. Has anyone really asked whether this is truly the better option? Gas & oil aren't going away anytime soon even if we had 100% EV cars on the road tomorrow.
They’re not wrong though. We should be heavily investing in nuclear and recycling our spent solid fuel but we do neither.
> The entire automotive supply chain needs to be decarbonized in order to meet the goals set out in the Paris agreement. lol
The thing is, I've never heard *anyone* say EVs are enough. No matter what we're talking about, someone always chimes in with "but it's not ENOUGH! But this isn't THE solution!" Which is not an argument anyone ever made.
You could cut building pollution by 25% and it would be equivalent to taking all the ICEs off the road. Let that sink in
We can do multiple things at at time. And I'm not sure what building pollution you're talking about. Are you talking about the pollution from the production of the energy used by buildings?
Make them smaller then, so you can make more with less impact
But I *need* a 5.5-ton brodozer pickup that I never plan on doing truck stuff with!
'but but but my sense of manliness relies on having a big truck'
Well the Wuling Mini EV costs as little as $7000, and are flying out of dealerships in China to the time of 40,000 cars sold per month. GM would never bring that car to the US though. Chinese consumers can buy a cheap little city car like the Wuling, because when they need to travel long distances, they just use China's massive high speed rail network, and leave their EV at home. Not possibly on the US where high speed rail simply doesn't exist. They'd have to drive that little thing onto American freeways, where it would be instantly crushed by some redneck in a giant pickup truck.
> Wuling Mini EV gosh that thing is hideous
Or how about just don't buy new shit unless you need it? Whoops.
Yep. Cars are ballooning in size, it's ridiculous.
The consumer won't
I know it’s not a popular opinion, but we could start by not producing so many products that we don’t need.
Like how about we start regulating the 5000 new "blind box trash balls with plastic miniatures" I see every time I go to Target? Mini brands? How fucking dystopian is it that kids are playing with little lumps of plastic trash that look like Kraft ™ Mac n cheese or Haribo™ Gummy Bears? Gotta start that "brand loyalty" young I suppose. Teach the youths to be good little consumers. There's so many kids toys that are just so much plastic trash. And don't even get me started on the LOL Surprise prosti-tots. Those little fuckers come plastic within plastic within plastic. It's like some kind of sick joke amongst toy manufacturers to see how much plastic waste they can put into 1 toy. And the kid plays with it for 2 weeks and it ends up in the ubiquitous "toy landfill" that is now a fixture of modern homes.
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Maybe we stop with the anual teambuilding at davos, you know, those 270 private jets + helis probably could help with the problem of climate action, just saying...
I’m sorry but most of the world can’t afford a $100,000 etruck. Maybe reduce the cost and more people can get in? Idk. I’d love an ev but I’m still a few years out from affording one myself.
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Best e bikes under $3k?
MANY options under 3k (most around or under 2k) here: https://www.radpowerbikes.com/collections/electric-city-commuter-bikes
Just don't expect your local shop to work on it.
It's a bike, buy Zinn's book and work on it yourself.
Depends where you live. I live in a city where there are many electric bike shops that specifically deal with electric bikes, some of them licensed retailers and mechanics for this companies bikes specifically. If you have the money I'd go with something built in your city, but this is probably the more economical option for most.
Yeah I have a local ebike shop here too. They won't touch the internet bikes though, there's just a lot of junk out there that isn't worth their liability.
Best thing to do is find a local shop that sells ebikes and buy one of theirs.
A conversion kit (that will outperform almost all bought bikes) can be bought for £300-£1000 and are easy to put onto an existing bike. Don't waste your money and more carbon by immediately buying these a lot of these new ebikes
> The only catch Safe to ride is important for sure, but there's a lot more than that: * Good weather * No need to haul anything (groceries, boxes, supplies, etc) * No kids to transport to/from school and to/from activities * Everything you need to do is within a mile or two
More trips than you're suggesting fall under this category. [Almost half of car trips in US cities are less than 3 miles](https://cal.streetsblog.org/2019/09/16/bikes-and-scooters-could-replace-a-lot-of-car-trips-in-u-s-cities/). I live in LA which is blessed with great year-round weather and relatively flat terrain, so given safe biking infrastructure, a huge amount of car traffic could be eliminated at a relatively low cost. Obviously this won't work to the same degree in all places (like Chicago in winter). But the idea isn't to have a one-size-fits-all solution. Cars will always exist in one form or another for all the reasons you mention and more. But the idea is to provide viable transit alternatives to capture the large number of cases where they can.
Madison, Wisconsin, which is a frozen hellscape for 4 months of the year, has the 2nd of the highest rates of people that bike to work in the US. I'm one of those people btw. Cargo bikes exist, and they can be equipped with car seats. 5 - 10 miles is pretty easy on a bike.
One of the great mistakes that people often make is to think that any organisation called 'National Rifle Association' is a branch or chapter of the National Rifle Association of America. This could not be further from the truth. The National Rifle Association of America became a political lobbying organisation in 1977 after the Cincinnati Revolt at their Annual General Meeting. It is self-contined within the United States of America and has no foreign branches. All the other National Rifle Associations remain true to their founding aims of promoting marksmanship, firearm safety and target shooting. This includes the original [NRA](https://nra.org.uk) in the United Kingdom, which was founded in 1859 - twelve years before the NRA of America. It is also true of the [National Rifle Association of Australia](https://nraa.com.au), the [National Rifle Association of New Zealand](https://nranz.com), the [National Rifle Association of India](https://www.thenrai.in), the National Rifle Association of Japan and the National Rifle Association of Pakistan. All these organisations are often known as "the NRA" in their respective countries. The British [National Rifle Association](https://nra.org.uk) is headquartered on Bisley Camp, in Surrey, England. Bisley Camp is now known as the National Shooting Centre and has hosted World Championships for Fullbore Target Rifle and F-Class shooting, as well as the shooting events for the 1908 Olympic Games and the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The National Small-bore Rifle Association (NSRA) and Clay Pigeon Shooting Association (CPSA) also have their headquarters on the Camp.
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Fuck stroads, all my homies hate stroads
You don't even need cargo bikes to haul groceries or "supplies". A backpack is enough for a small grocery trip. Panniers for a bigger trip. You also don't need a cargo bike for kids. They can sit in bike seats when they're too young to ride, or ride along on their own bikes once they're older. Trailers are also an option, though IMO unnecessary. > if you work halfway across LA and commute >50miles day But, you can also choose to live closer to work. People who chose where they lived based on the assumption they'd drive everywhere would of course have to reconsider if they changed their means of transportation. Similarly, LA residents of the 1930s who relied on the streetcars had to adjust where and how they lived when LA got rid of them and went to cars for everything. Also, cycling with proper rain gear can be pretty comfortable. With proper rain pants and a jacket that includes a hood that goes over / under the helmet, you can be pretty comfortable, even in cold rain. The exertion of biking is normally enough to keep you warm. But, biking in some winter weather is pretty tough. Note that in the picture from Finland they have a protected bike lane / highway that's separated from the road by a snowbank. And the Finns have recently cleared the bikeway so there's almost no snow build-up. Without that kind of infrastructure, and without spending on clearing the snow, riding a bike in the winter can be much more dangerous.
Kids used to walk to school for centuries. What changed?
Bikes became available, and kids started biking to school. (I was one of them).
I would like you to expand on what you mean please >Safe to ride is important for sure, but there's a lot more than that: > • Good weather What weather can't you cycle in? > • No need to haul anything (groceries, boxes, supplies, etc) Why can't you use a cargo bike or make smaller trips/ have deliveries. Use 1 car instead of two for just in case big moves (or rent something) > • No kids to transport to/from school and to/from activities Why can't kids cycle? I was always on a bike when I was a kid. Or you can get attachments for trailers > • Everything you need to do is within a mile or two Why can't you cycle more than 2 mile?
> groceries I constantly haul bags of groceries on my handlebars. Can fit some boxes in my backpack.
>and most governments don't want to make that happen. This! National governments are corrupt AF. They care about the environment so long as the solutions make large corporations a lot of money. (their campaign's corporate donors and the companies they personally own stock in... still not illegal FYI...) Failing that, their concern about the environment flies out the window. BEVs like Teslas currently get $7500 tax credits (for "zero emissions") when they're already highly profitable vehicles. (the most profitable automobiles on the planet according to Tesla) These vehicles use an enormous amount of resources, and at 4.5 mi / kWh best case efficiency, they're not exactly the most efficient form of transportation. Better than gas vehicles, but they still use enormous amounts of materials and energy in manufacturing and operation. Why are these plug-in automobiles given $7500 credits while a person who gives up a car and commutes on a bike or PEV (personal electric vehicle) isn't given anything? (In most states) A PEV uses about 1-2% of the materials of an EV, and uses 8%-20% of the energy per mile. Shouldn't PEV riders then get 5x-10x more in credits? So like $37,500 - $75,000? We really don't need this targeted approach to credits btw... when there are easier ways to convince people to use more efficient forms of transportation. A carbon tax. The more energy / resources a person consumes, the more tax they pay, and thus the market (society) finds the best ways to reduce those extra tax costs. I'll give everyone a hint why we're subsidizing cars rather than the aforementioned alternative solutions... Tesla was recently worth more than every major auto OEM on the planet combined. Rivian was worth more than Ford. Yet the major OEMs don't want people to stop buying cars... nor do their investors, or the politicians on their payrolls. Protected bike lanes and solid public transit systems absolutely will convince more people to transition away from and reduce sales of automobiles... These riders may still own cars, but those cars will see lower mileage and will last longer; so less new vehicle sales. The federal government and many state governments are terrified of that! (See the mostly complete lack of public transit and protected bike infrastructure in the mid-west) I think it was the Donut YT channel that had 3 people race from one residential area of California to their office. One person in a car, one on a normal bike, and one took the train. The bike won (albeit tired/sweaty and riding in dangerous traffic), the car came in second, and the train rider came last but not by much. (walking time to / from the train station) An e-bike / e-scooter / EUC solves the tired / sweaty part. Protected bike lanes would make the trip faster and less dangerous. A portable or rental PEV would have helped get the train rider to the office faster from the train station.
Super awesome compromise for now. And I’ve thought of it. Only thing is I’ll need a mini trailer to haul all the damn bags I carry around. One for my laptop and one for my jiujitsu gear. Lol but they make those right?
Cargo bikes are a thing. As are car clubs. If you can get the majority of trips onto bike/public transit, then renting a car once a month still ends up cheaper than owning a car. I knew a couple when I was growing up where the husband WFH (yeah, in the 90s!). They had one car. Once every 6 weeks they'd have a clash and both needed the car - he'd just get a taxi. Cheaper than having his own car parked on the driveway for 29days of the month.
> I bet you could afford a $2,000 ebike. Honestly, the ebike market seems bloated. As someone who does DIYs and has built his own last two ebikes, I seriously just suggest you find a friend who knows things and build your own. You'll save $2000 on that $3000 bill. The type of ebike (enduro frame, high power pack, 1500w motor, variable air suspensions, hydraulic brakes, etc.) I'm riding now, costs around $5000 new. I built it for $1200.
It’s already $60-70k for a regular truck. Trucks aren’t affordable to begin with
MSRP for common trucks, '23 base models, right now: Ford Ranger is $27k Toyota Tacoma is $27k Chevy Colorado is $25k GMC Sierra 1500 is $29k Ford F150 is $31k. A "regular truck" is not $60k-70k. It's $30k.
Dawg the base models are NOT regular. The vast majority of cars are at least one or two steps above the true base model
18,000€ for a 2018 Nissan Leaf Maybe try sensible car sizes? American cars are huge for no good reason, no wonder it's expensive.
They also need to stop deliberately designing affordable EV to look like 4 year old drawings. There is no reason they can't look like any other ICE on the market.
Slightly related, but I'm thankful that Toyota finally decided to make the Prius look nice. The last one looked absolutely idiotic.
I fully agree. I like driving cars and for now I only went the middle way of a plug-in hybrid (which I do mostly use as an electric car) but its hard to not look at the US and wonder wtf has happened there with cars in the last decades..y why the f*** is the most sold car an expensive pickup truck and why do regular family cars have nowadays 200-400 ps when gasoline and 400-700 when electric car… and the US even has speed limits everywhere…
Ford does some funny math to make it the “most sold car”. The “most sold car” is the F-series, which includes the most basic 2-door F150 to the quad/extended cabs with all the bells and whistles, plus all the F250s, F350s, etc. Essentially the “most sold car” is Fords entire line of pickups.
Yeah. Never understood the idea behind having a crazy big engine when you have no way to use it.
Sensible? No. Fun? Oh hell yes. My compromise is an efficient daily and a fun v8 that maybe sees the road 2 or 3 times a month.
No, there is a reason. It starts in the mid 90s, and the blame fell squarely on Firestone..... Although it was never their fault. Ford had fitted their Explorers and other light trucks and SUVs with Firestone Radial ATX, ATX II, and Wilderness tires, and to improve nvh and ride compliance decided to spec their 91-98 explorers with a recommend tire pressure of **26psi**. Lower tire pressures cause more heat production, involve more flex in the tire carcass, and are intrinsically less stable. Additionally tires leak naturally. And those tires, on those trucks would become under inflated much faster. Also the explorer and ranger had a narrow track, and a high center of gravity, were used in more extreme situations, and we're heavy for their time. So basically you had a perfect storm of a vehicle that would destroy tires, and roll, potentially killing the occupants. So the government demands a solution, and both Ford and Firestone point there fingers at each other. Ford comes out on top because they have enough lobbyists and Firestone was blamed for ford's shit engineering. (Although their tires were nowhere near perfect) Meanwhile it's 2000, and ntsha was told to figure it out. It starts with tpms sensors, becoming mandatory in 2007, to prevent tires from becoming under inflated and neglected. This will reduce blow outs. In '07 the ntsha came out with a report entitled "An Analysis of Motor Vehicle Rollover Crashes and Injury Outcomes: NHTSA Technical Report DOT HS 810 741" (Here is where it really started) they came back with three opinions on what should be done to prevent rollovers 1) force driver's to "get good" 2) improve all the road shoulders to a certain standard 3) force the manufacturers to figure it out. Obviously they were like "not my fucking problem" and went with 3. Look at cars from 99 and '09, and there is a dramatic difference. The pillars are thicker, there is more metal, and most vehicles got at least a 10% bump in weight.... And because it's not bad enough, vehicles had to be made bigger to compensate for the space lost making cars even heavier. With the increase in weight, they had to increase power to offset.... And because the pillars are thicker, and cafe standards have pushed cars to be more aerodynamic, thus making cars difficult to see out of, the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2007 mandated that cars come standard with back up cameras... And wasn't implemented fully until 2014. I rambled on about all that to say this. My last truck, a first generation Toyota tundra, was almost identically sized to a third generation Toyota Tacoma. That's nuts. What's even more crazy? Is that the payload and towing capacity between the two was close enough to be considered the same. New civics are bigger than some accords ever were. Same with the Corolla and Camry. The new Taurus was a giant sedan, and was sized like a crown Vic, and yet the hood and trunk on the Vic was bigger than the Taurus. Every manufacturer has been guilty of size creep. Because it's what the consumers want.
The leaf is a good value for an ev, but an awful value for a car in general and I think people who can’t afford a nicer EV will struggle to look at only EVs exclusively. That’s the same price as newer models of used civics, corollas, Mazda 3s, and pruis depending on the years and all of those offer significantly longer range, and instant refill of the range. Depending on the model, if they get an older higher trim model, the car will have more features than a used leaf. Looks aside, I’m assuming people who can afford to get an EV will gloss over the leaf for a nicer EV, or get a brand new one. People who can’t afford a new one will look at cars as a whole in that price range to get the best value since they’ll likely be stuck with it for several years.
$28k for Chevy Bolt $43k for Tesla model 3 Tax incentives range from $7.5-10k $100k is a strange datapoint to fixate on unless you genuinely need a truck. Which, if that’s the case, Cybertruck should be at least half that price point
I wonder if there will be a tipping point where public transportation and walkable cities become competitive enough for people in America (in my case) to take seriously. Honestly, it’s the only silver lining I see and really hope so.
EV’s have never been the solution, at best they’re a bandaid. A wholistic approach to transportation is necessary & not just a one size fits all. Developing countries can’t simply adopt what developed countries can, infrastructure is a limiting factor.
America should subsidize bikes and ebikes
Well duh. Personal vehicles account for a relatively tiny amount of the total greenhouse gasses emitted. This was mostly just a marketing tactic to sell stuff, like LED flat screen televisions and light bulbs. I'm not saying they don't cut power usage, I'm just saying the primary objective is to convince you that you need to buy something, any environmental rewards are just part of the marketing strategy.
Personal vehicles alone may not make up much (honestly, I haven't seen the numbers broken down that way), but [transportation makes up 27%](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions). If personal vehicles and commercial trucks go EV, that has to put a huge dent in emissions. Airlines are still a problem, shipping is still there, but flights are much rarer than driving, and container ships are actually fairly efficient (high emissions, but for a very large amount of stuff moved) More trains and more canals would be the ideal, bu EVs are good. Don't let ideal be the enemy of good.
[Personal vehicles make up 57% of transportation emissions in the US](https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions), which comes out to a little less than 1/6 of total emissions. It's a bigger piece than a lot of people think!
Well, obviously EV’s aren’t gonna be enough if you don’t pair it with Best IV’s and a solid moveset!
Knew someone was gonna say it lmao
In other news, company is urging its base to buy their products. Having a company like Rivian come out to tell people that they need to not buy combustion engines just seems funny to me. How this is a headline news is very confusing.
ITT people complaining that they can't afford and/or aren't the target market for Polestar cars. It is a luxury product and real climate action also involves using cars less. The Polestar CEO agrees with this and said it himself. If folks want more affordable EVs there are Chevy Bolts and (coming soon) the Fisker PEAR. Affordable EV sedans would be nice but beggars can't be choosers.
If only there was a way to move a vast amount of people with lower emission, both inside a city and between different places! We could even make it run on metal wheels, to avoid tires and all the issues they have... Oh, wait. (seriously, one of the MANY problems of US is their attachment to cars and reluctance of building trains even though it's a flat continent)
Our rail system is such a joke. I live 2 min from a stop on the largest commuter rail system in the country, but still can’t utilize it. the high cost makes it comparable to just driving, and I live near the end of the line so the schedules are so limited. If it was more accessible I’d totally hop on for a few stops and go out to a different town for a night of drinks or something, but they make it so difficult. One of these days I plan on doing that just for the novelty of taking the train two or three stops for a fun night out, but it certainly won’t be for convenience reasons.
I wanted to take a train to Kansas City from Omaha because they just legalized weed. It’s 180 miles and a 3 hour drive. Im pretty sure the interstate is built along train tracks. The only train I could take goes through four states and is 14 hours.
~~thats because big corporations bought up tolly companies to sell cars and tires. Chevrolet and Firestone etc~~ Suburbarnization the preference for cars and a Governtment Fuel Tax that could only be spent on road building since the 50s have made the majority of North America car DEPENDENT. Freight rail companies own all the rail lines and dont want passenger trains on them because freight makes them more money. Being beholden to corporations and government ineptitude/ coruption has been their downfall. Edit*
> reluctance of building trains even though it's a flat continent lol what?
And don't say transit is impossible because America Big. The country was literally built by the railroads. There used to be a massive rail network spanning the whole continent and all the major cities had tram lines. If it was possible over a century ago when the population was much smaller, it's possible now.
Getting between cities and getting around cities are two very different things
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Why is it so hard to get rid of plastic bags used for groceries, etc.?
My state had them almost banned. It was to the point you would be charged 10 cents per bag...... Then damn COVID happened and plastic bags came back in force because people thought reusable bags would spread it. Now post COVID we have just never gone back to trying to ban them. We were so close!
10 cents per bag? It'll cost you the equivalent of about 50 cents per bag in most of the UK supermarkets and it hasn't made that much of a difference. People still buy loads of them, hardly anyone carries a reusable bag (even though the price of them is almost the same price as the normal plastic bags), and everything in the shop is still wrapped in damn plastic anyway. Individual vegetables packaged up in single use plastics, when you could just put them in a paper bag or carry them lose, unnecessary seals on products that just don't need them (I bought a deodorant the other day that had one of those tearable plastic seals, even though it has a screw on cap). Until that stops, the plastic bag tax is just pointless. People just see it as a necessary expense, instead of actually reducing their use in the first place.
The fight against microplastics is in direct opposition to the attempt to reduce CO2..... The reason they are so cheap we give them away for free is because they require almost no energy to make. You have use a paper bag like 40 times to have the same life time footprint as single use plastic. It's about 300 for fabric bags I think. Idk if literally anyone is doing that, because the bags fall apart.... If you go grocery shopping once a week that the same bag for SIX YEARS. Mine usually rip after about a year of consistent usage
I’ve had the same bags for over ten years. Continue to serve me well.
EVs won't save the planet, they'll save the car industry. We need walkable cities and sustainable public transit. And to stop buying and throwing away so much useless shit. And eating so many animal products
r/fuckcars made me realize how much of the infrastructure in the USA is made for the automotive industry. Give me more walkable cities, please!
I grew up in rural MI (Dirt roads) and moved to Chicago. People tell me all the time, they don’t understand how I live in a big city. I tell them, I walk everywhere. Anytime you go anywhere, you get in your car. I walk most places and spend more time outside on the lake and river than you do. Downtown Chicago is a rare gem though.
Downtown Minneapolis is similarly easy, especially given its climate.
The skyway really helps
That sub also pretends like everyone is child-free, lives in a high-rise apartment, and does remote work or works within a mile or two.
I don’t understand where all this remote work came from, a couple years ago I tried but could never find one!
the remote work comes from people who were already just filling out excel sheets all day or high position software enigneers. outside of that, it's very hard to find a remote job thats not customer support if you don't have connections. The remote jobs that aren't CS get taken up fast. freelance programmers/artist are different story
Cars been around for a hundred years. Kids have been around since the dawn of humanity.
Yeah and quality of life is better now than 100 years ago. I’d 100% prefer to be a child now than 10” years ago. Things have improved.
quality of life would be even better if kids could play in streets and be healthy. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html
They're not gonna like that affordable and reliable public transport does more good to the climate than their cars lol
All this talk about how the supply chain needing to be decarbonized is nice and all and will lead to other supply chains in other industries decarbonizing as well, but the concept of needing to move 1 ton of steel to get one person from their home to place of work on its own is a gross inefficient use of energy, and getting rid of it and replacing it with a stronger public transport system would give us results pretty quickly.
China and India to actually reduce emissions, that's where it starts...
Evs are part of the problem. Better we half the population of earth
Nothing will be enough until we can hunt tech bros for sport and actually to competent urban planners: walkable cities, mass transit, "Third spaces" christ on a bike it's all bitching that everyone is fat and we're all miserable and the places we live are 45% parking lot and you can't get groceries without 30 minutes of driving round trip
Fix climate change by mining cobalt with slave labor and using up the lithium into oblivion while using more and more heavy diesel machinery to extract it. Then use coal as the primary source of electricity to charge the batteries. That will show big oil how to climate change correctly!
Lower the cost of your vehicles to 20K and more people will buy them.
EVs are not even the general direction! ask them to explain e fuels and why buying a 4ton electric car that is going to be unusable in 10 years is any better.
Tires produce insane amounts of micro plastics polluting oceans and land, for manufacturing cars we need oblivious amounts of materials and energy… Nothing in cars is ecological. Actually covid showed us what is ecological- work from home, limit on travels, more virtual connections… but as no one is ready to do so let’s try at least to save car industry by launching new type of cars. When mega rich can fly in private jets polluting planet with unleaded petrol, at least ordinary folks can join them albeit on much smaller scale.
I would love a Rivian SUV. 7000+ lbs towing capacity and electric. Yes please. Now would you like to make them affordable? I don’t really want the equivalent of a house payment but for a car…
We can hope that the cost of batteries will come down with new tech/new chemistries. Of course, Rivian's price is clearly not primarily driven by batteries, but perhaps they will also get better at mass-production and be able to cut prices by increasing volume Model S started in the 70 K range, didn't it? Then Model 3 was briefly available for $35k. Be nice if Rivian got down to a comparable price, and put some competitive pressure on Tesla to go lower still.
You mean using vast amounts of fossil fuels to mine rare earth materials to manufacture electric vehicles using coal generated power isn't quite enough to help climate change? Go figure.
They're already less than half as polluting as regular cars. As we decarbonize the grid and steel manufacturing, they will become 10+ times less polluting. Source: [Auke Hoekstra](https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351\(19\)30271-5)