this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
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Electric Vehicles
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No, I think we can mitigate the effects of climate change with effective regulation. And part of that includes replacing ICE vehicles with EVs.
BEVs do not reduce emissions enough. That is the point. Not even close to enough. And that's putting aside all of the physical space requirements, lack of water absorbtion, pollution, and personal injury caused by vehicles.
It's not an overnight fix, but the fact remains that people have magical thinking and believe EVs are fixing or addressing climate change. They ARE NOT, they continue to exacerbated the issue. Being marginally better isn't fixing or fighting anything, it just lets you feel better.
Nothing, by itself, "reduces emissions enough".
Climate change is a multifactorial problem and it will require multipronged solutions. This includes transition to EVs, transition to solar/renewable electricity production, higher efficiency homes, higher efficiency industry/agriculture, and more.
It includes a transition away from individual transportation.
Light duty vehicles account for 57% of transportation emissions. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions
There will always be individual transportation, and climate scientists account for that when setting climate goals.
Light duty EVs will contribute little to CO2 emissions once the electrical grid moves away from fossil fuels. In some states, there is already enough wind/solar electricity that EVs decrease CO2 emissions by 94%.
The idea that EVs will contribute little to global CO2 emissions is complete fantasy, and it demonstrates exactly what I was saying in my first comment. Nobody is willing to make the sacrifices necessary, so we all buy our indulgences and continue driving straight at the cliff we can clearly see. It's already too late to stop a climate disaster, we're simply determining how bad it's going to be. And from where I stand, it's going to be much worse than you're pretending.
In the meantime, we keep on buying vehicles and dumping GHG into the air and pollution into our water.
The idea that EV adoption can significantly reduce global CO2 emissions is supported by science.
But you seem more interested in moral judgment than science.
Let me reiterate, I own an EV. You can feel morally judged all you want, that's on you.
I don't care if you own an EV. You still look at EVs in terms of "sin" and "indulgences", as a priest would. You even share their belief in an preordained apocalypse.
I look at EVs as a scientist would: they are an effective way to reduce CO2. I don't care about your moral judgment at all, for the same reason I don't care what priests say: your various pronouncements are not based on science.
Are you under the delusion that climate catastrophe isn't coming? Because it absolutely is, and there's nothing we can do about it. That's scientific consensus.
No you don't, because climate scientists realize that they're a half measure and do more damage than we can afford. Again, a stop gap (at best).
LOL, no.
And more specifically:
Your best attempt is a non-binding accord among nations, none of which are going to reach their Paris Agreement aspirational goals. I mean, I know lots of people have their head in the sand and believe in magical climate fixes, but this is an especially bad take.
Also, we absolutely ARE going to reach and exceed global temperature changes of 2 ºC. That's the disaster tipping point.
You're also using avoided emssions and pretending this is preventing disaster. It's not. It's avoided emissions, but we are already at the tipping point. You should try knowing something about this topic before posting quotes, because you very obviously don't understand what you've read here.
No, that entire quote comes from the IPCC. Which is a scientific consensus, the thing that you're clearly not familiar with.
You stopped reading after eight words, but if you had bothered to follow the link you would have found that the scientific consensus covers more than just Paris. There are a lot of mitigation strategies, aka "things we can do".
And the best you can do is more prophecy.
No climate scientist claims to know what absolutely WILL happen.
... this is easily the most foolish thing I've seen someone say online. What the fuck do you think climate science is?
Anyway, bye. Enjoy that sand you're huffing.
Climate science can, and has, predicted various scenarios that are based on different possible things that people could do in the future, including those that may limit warming to 1.5 C or less.
But since climate scientists can't predict with absolute certainty what people will actually do, they can't predict with absolute certainty what will happen to our climate.