Dispelling Myths about EVs' Envirnomental Impact

[Assaf]

More generally, if the environmental movement cannot learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, then we are all doomed anyway. It is possible to work on transit, cycling and walkability infrastructure, and simultaneously work on moving motorized transport from Oil to electric - without one arm trying to slash the other off.

Assaf, Could you amplify this view of the 'environmental movement' a bit please? I'd like to understand your view on this. Thanks!

Andy, sorry I thought it was fairly straightforward, but perhaps my wording was unclear.

"Walk and chew gum" described the need to move to a less-driving, more transit/cycling/walkability culture ("walk"), and the need to move motor-vehicle technology from oil to electric (or something else non-fossil; electric seems by far the most viable alternative right now). That' the "chew gum" part.

There is an increasingly vocal voice among environmentalists, claiming that the two tasks are contradictory and even mutually exclusive, and therefore promoting an anti-EV stance. I gave Ozzie Zehner as the most high-profile recent example for this. He even went as far as to insinuate that the Union of Concerned Scientists are auto-industry shills, because their reports show EVs as beneficial.

As to "environmental movement", I mean in the broad sense: anyone caring enough to do something about the environment - rather than some closed group with central control, etc.

Hope this clarifies...

 

[donald]

Donald, it's not too late to sincerely apologize, for gratuitously bringing **** and people's assholes into the discussion.

I'm sorry for not apologising deeply enough before. I do apologise sincerely, and such an apology was intended above.

I'm sorry that the reality I have experienced and suffered, on not just one long trip and for some hours, is too unsavoury to mention and I should not have mentioned. I have clearly very misjudged how far I could take that description.

I was hoping you could just ignore my posts now, and I was intending to back out, apologetically, from the thread. I am the clown on this occasion. Sorry. Badly misjudged.

(I would be happy to delete my offending posts, to try to remedy this. I don't think that would damage the thread, if others also want to delete or edit their responses. Up to you guys. Do you want me to pull the posts? I'm not trying to hide my error, but simply clean the thread up for you. Can I do any more?)

 

[AndyH]

More generally, if the environmental movement cannot learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, then we are all doomed anyway. It is possible to work on transit, cycling and walkability infrastructure, and simultaneously work on moving motorized transport from Oil to electric - without one arm trying to slash the other off.

Assaf, Could you amplify this view of the 'environmental movement' a bit please? I'd like to understand your view on this. Thanks!

Andy, sorry I thought it was fairly straightforward, but perhaps my wording was unclear.

"Walk and chew gum" described the need to move to a less-driving, more transit/cycling/walkability culture ("walk"), and the need to move motor-vehicle technology from oil to electric (or something else non-fossil; electric seems by far the most viable alternative right now). That' the "chew gum" part.

There is an increasingly vocal voice among environmentalists, claiming that the two tasks are contradictory and even mutually exclusive, and therefore promoting an anti-EV stance. I gave Ozzie Zehner as the most high-profile recent example for this. He even went as far as to insinuate that the Union of Concerned Scientists are auto-industry shills, because their reports show EVs as beneficial.

As to "environmental movement", I mean in the broad sense: anyone caring enough to do something about the environment - rather than some closed group with central control, etc.

Hope this clarifies...

Thanks. I guess I'm slow and missing out on messaging disconnects from various enviro groups. I don't consider Zehner an environmentalist so simply discount his hit-pieces.

The thing that first came to mind for me when I read your post was that some have been fighting large-scale renewable generation projects, but the few I've been able to track to a source ended up being astroturfs funded by either fossil fuel or power utility groups. I don't consider these to be environmentalists either, though they certainly try to paint themselves with this brush when pushing their opinions to the public.


Coming from the upper midwest, but having lived in Tucson and now San Antonio, I think your post about cities, SW sprawl, and mass transit is spot-on. Nicely done!

 

[evnow]

Environmental Movement is fairly broad. With a variety of views. But note that Sierra Club is sponsoring today's National PlugInDay.

Mass transit as a solution is obviously needed - if not in a small town - in large cities for sure. There just aren't enough roads to carry all the people to work in cars in cities like NY or Beijing or Bombay or Tokyo.

How to make it more palatable to non-smelling classes is a different matter.

 

[AndyH]

How to make it more palatable to non-smelling classes is a different matter.

I think that's the simple part - that's why I related my 'culture shock' arriving in England as a 20 year old.

That's not saying it would be inexpensive or easy to get a critical mass of 6 or 7 figure folks to Europe for six months of cultural immersion training, though...

 

[klapauzius]

How to make it more palatable to non-smelling classes is a different matter.

I think that's the simple part - that's why I related my 'culture shock' arriving in England as a 20 year old.

That's not saying it would be inexpensive or easy to get a critical mass of 6 or 7 figure folks to Europe for six months of cultural immersion training, though...

That would, btw, help with some other cultural issues too...but mass immersion wont work and magically changing the city layout of many US cities also, which I think is the biggest issue with mass transit here (to be fair, most European cities have NOT been planned for mass transit, it just happened so that the crowded medieval design works well, because everything is so close).

On the other had, buses can go everywhere and not every city needs a subway or light rail system (for Seattle e.g. I am wondering if expanding the bus-service in favor of light rail would have achieved the same for less...).

 

[Assaf]

Donald,

Apology accepted. I don't think there's a need to go back and start deleting posts. If anyone is ever so bored as to go back and read this obscure thread, it's better to leave all the conversation intact, esp. since "all's well that ends well."

I should have guessed you are writing about your personal experience. One thing I've encountered repeatedly, is people migrating to extreme positions (or to expressing them in an extreme manner when "triggered"), via generalizing from their personal traumas.

Just a few weeks ago I encountered a deeply offensive post in Hebrew, by an anthropologist who claimed that in most mixed-ethnicity marriages in Israel, it's the man who comes from a dominant (European-Jewish) ancestry, seeking an exotic and submissive wife from a dominated (other Jewish) ethnic group to exploit. That argument might have had some grain of truth 50+ years ago - even then it was a stretch - but today it's completely off-the-wall, ridiculous and inappropriate. Being in such a mixed-ethnicity marriage myself, I commented very strongly and negatively. Later I read the author's bio: seems like both she and her mother suffered from relationships that might have had this element in them. So she generalized and projected her private suffering onto everyone. And I responded personally, feeling personally maligned.

Likewise, yes there are many smelly buses and smelly people in buses, just like there there are many crazy car drivers including some who are packing and might shoot you on the road. But transit as a whole is legitimate part of the past, present and surely the future of human travel. And for any commute destination of sufficient size, it's the most efficient and effective mode, quite often the only feasible one. Improving hygiene and safety are chump change compared to the task of setting up and sustaining a major transit system.

 

[Assaf]

@AndyH:

Coming from the upper midwest, but having lived in Tucson and now San Antonio, I think your post about cities, SW sprawl, and mass transit is spot-on. Nicely done!

Thanks!

I don't consider Zehner an environmentalist so simply discount his hit-pieces...

I don't consider these to be environmentalists either, though they certainly try to paint themselves with this brush when pushing their opinions to the public.

I think most people do consider Zehner an environmentalist, and I also tend to see him as one who got a bit too carried away in his rhetoric. Thing is, he is hardly alone.

As you say, there are some posers, shills, deniers and idiots who just hop on the "EVs are not green" bandwagon. But there are quite a few good people who want to do the right thing for the environment, and either deeply suspect/dislike EVs for various reasons, or are confused from all the contradictory information streams hitting them. If you do EVs for environmental reasons, you will sooner or later encounter them. That's one main reason I wrote these blog posts.

 

[AndyH]

Euro/US contrast - bicycles

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2THe_10dYs[/youtube]

How the Dutch got their bike paths...or...how to use a crisis to make better choices...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o[/youtube]

Transport is responsible for around a seventh of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Of these emissions almost two thirds are the result of passenger travel while the rest is due to freight.