Well it’s baffling to me to have “pollution” as the first point of that list. It’s just beyond my comprehension how one could state that a non-combustion car doesn’t help with pollution problems. Yes alright, there’s still microplastics… But hey, please visit a city like Beijing and tell me again that EVs don’t combat pollution on a massive scale.
It’s nice to be critical and yes, cars are shit for our society. Nevertheless our society has been built around them and people will drive cars. They might do so less in 50 years but right here right now with the way society is organised EVs do definitely play an important part in reducing emissions. Change takes time. And people like the ones protesting against the Gigafactory prefer to ignore this context. To me this line of thinking is naive to say the least and can also be seen as self-righteous and delusional by those for whom no alternative is available now. Lecturing people about their lifestyle is not going to change anything.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that brake dust: Electric motors make for much better brakes than ICEs, and it’s not exactly rare for the brake pedal to regen instead of applying the brakes, at least if you’re braking gently enough.
That all might be overshadowed by EVs being worse with their tyres, though. Steel on steel, if necessary mediated by sand, is definitely better for the environment as well as commuters because who wants to be stuck in traffic when you can have someone drive you.
You can try to teach people what a good consumption decision is w.r.t. global change. But it won’t work in 99% of cases. People are often emotionally attached to their way of living and many have tied a part of their identity to it.
I don’t care about what counts as excuses because there is no ethical consumption in capitalism. What I care about first and foremost is reducing GHG emissions effectively, within the system that we’re currently living in. And for everything else you have to offer people real alternatives if you want them to change their behaviour. And changing that behaviour will not come true by only making factual arguments but by understanding people’s emotions and identities and accounting for those in your argument. It’s clear that people in rural communities (and a large share of the population lives there) will drive cars for many years to come and these cars have to be EVs.
Well that’s not the type of emotional argument that I was referring to lol. I don’t know why you would think I’m talking about myself. I don’t own a car.
I’m just trying to understand others that don’t live like me in order to find the necessary compromises. Because that’s what needs to happen in a democracy.
I understand that you’re desperate but not much good will come out of that emotion. It’s not that people are evil and care about nothing and that this is the reason why they don’t act in a meaningful way. This line of thinking is just plain wrong for the vast majority of the population. Yes, people are also lazy but they also have many many everyday problems and can’t make changing their lifestyle right here right now their top priority. Yes we have to fight for changes, in the media, on the policy level and also make the good alternatives a good deal to choose. But that won’t happen with accusations and self-righteousness, I’m sorry.
Car tires account for a third of microplastics emissions in Germany. Cars are a major source of pollution, especially compared with alternatives like Bikes or Public transport.
And that is purely talking about operational emissions. The production and disposal of EVs is another huge source of pollution and GHG emissions.
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So true! My agreement or disagreement is completely separate from it being (at least partial and worst mostly) wrong.
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Well it’s baffling to me to have “pollution” as the first point of that list. It’s just beyond my comprehension how one could state that a non-combustion car doesn’t help with pollution problems. Yes alright, there’s still microplastics… But hey, please visit a city like Beijing and tell me again that EVs don’t combat pollution on a massive scale.
It’s nice to be critical and yes, cars are shit for our society. Nevertheless our society has been built around them and people will drive cars. They might do so less in 50 years but right here right now with the way society is organised EVs do definitely play an important part in reducing emissions. Change takes time. And people like the ones protesting against the Gigafactory prefer to ignore this context. To me this line of thinking is naive to say the least and can also be seen as self-righteous and delusional by those for whom no alternative is available now. Lecturing people about their lifestyle is not going to change anything.
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I wouldn’t be too sure about that brake dust: Electric motors make for much better brakes than ICEs, and it’s not exactly rare for the brake pedal to regen instead of applying the brakes, at least if you’re braking gently enough.
That all might be overshadowed by EVs being worse with their tyres, though. Steel on steel, if necessary mediated by sand, is definitely better for the environment as well as commuters because who wants to be stuck in traffic when you can have someone drive you.
You can try to teach people what a good consumption decision is w.r.t. global change. But it won’t work in 99% of cases. People are often emotionally attached to their way of living and many have tied a part of their identity to it.
I don’t care about what counts as excuses because there is no ethical consumption in capitalism. What I care about first and foremost is reducing GHG emissions effectively, within the system that we’re currently living in. And for everything else you have to offer people real alternatives if you want them to change their behaviour. And changing that behaviour will not come true by only making factual arguments but by understanding people’s emotions and identities and accounting for those in your argument. It’s clear that people in rural communities (and a large share of the population lives there) will drive cars for many years to come and these cars have to be EVs.
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Well that’s not the type of emotional argument that I was referring to lol. I don’t know why you would think I’m talking about myself. I don’t own a car.
I’m just trying to understand others that don’t live like me in order to find the necessary compromises. Because that’s what needs to happen in a democracy.
I understand that you’re desperate but not much good will come out of that emotion. It’s not that people are evil and care about nothing and that this is the reason why they don’t act in a meaningful way. This line of thinking is just plain wrong for the vast majority of the population. Yes, people are also lazy but they also have many many everyday problems and can’t make changing their lifestyle right here right now their top priority. Yes we have to fight for changes, in the media, on the policy level and also make the good alternatives a good deal to choose. But that won’t happen with accusations and self-righteousness, I’m sorry.
Car tires account for a third of microplastics emissions in Germany. Cars are a major source of pollution, especially compared with alternatives like Bikes or Public transport.
And that is purely talking about operational emissions. The production and disposal of EVs is another huge source of pollution and GHG emissions.
Thanks for telling me again. Very helpful but besides the point.
So your point is to ignore the total environmental impact of a product and just cherrypick the one category in which it is better?