this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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Lithium mining is quite destructive, and electric vehicles don't have the longevity ICE cars have and more quickly turn into waste. We've just replace one form of ecological damage for another.
Reducing our dependence on oil is important, but we need actual sustainable solutions, like investing in public transportation infrastructure powered by renewables, and reducing reliance on personal vehicles.
Capitalists are seeking to profit off of the lie that your individual decisions can help save the planet from their relentless profit seeking behavior. Don't believe them. They just end up selling their carbon credits giving another company the greenlight to pollute even more, canceling out any benefit they might be able to claim.
The article I posted from MIT in my other comment makes the claim that what you’re saying is not true. They have similar longevity, without the waste of oil changes and other additional carbon emissions, and the majority of ecological damage comes from charging infrastructure which can be made completely green. Additionally, Lithium can be recaptured and companies like Sigma Resources are finding ways to make the sourcing and recapture even more sustainable. Unless oil-based power sources can get better while simultaneously outpacing the current growth of renewable energy forms, I think your statement can’t possibly be true.
Look, if you think that replacing gas cars with another kind of car is going to save the planet, you've lost the plot. Less than 10% of carbon emissions come from personal vehicles, and electrification doesn't offer significant relief.
If you want to pretend that carbon credits don't exist, you can do that, but they do exist and "eco-friendly" companies just sell them for profit so that someone else can pollute on their behalf.
If electric cars offer any benefit at all, it is basically irrelevant because carbon emissions aren't going down, and carbon credits literally cancel out the good. Those carbon credits are badly over-allocated to EV companies, because those companies overstate their impact, so its likely they are just making things worse.
Elon Musk isn't going to save you.
That’s a short-sighted way to look at it. Less than 10% might come from personal vehicles but 31% comes from commercial transportation which can also be electrified. On top of that, 37% of remaining emissions come from generating energy and electricity from fossil fuels. As more of those sources become alternative sources like wind, water, solar, etc., electric vehicles (including commercial vehicles) take a huge chunk of emissions and dirty forms of energy away.
http://climatechange.chicago.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases
We don’t need carbon credits. We need clean sources of energy that are sustainable. If we were really desperate, we could come up with nuclear sources but that would need more public support and is rife with bad waste.
No one said anything about Elon. But you’re wrong about electric cars.