[justasimpleman]

My next car will be "no car at all". Even electric cars have huge externalities that you do not pay for, but your children, namely, the disposal of the batteries, pollution created by the manufacturing, costly extraction of rare earths etc. Instead we should heavily invest in high-speed trains.

[lb1lf]

High-speed trains are wonderful where the population density is sufficiently high, but in more sparsely populated parts, the car (and, for longer distances, the plane) is likely the only viable solution for decades to come.

With that as a starting point, the cars and planes might as well be electric. (Or hydrogen powered!)

[fulafel]

I think this reasoning pins down the wrong variables of the equation. You can pick your housing and location based on not owning a car (among other criteria). And it scales too. And for decision-makers it's responsible to nudge your citizenship to this direction.

[eertami]

>You can pick your housing and location based on not owning a car

Only if you want to live in a large city and don't do anything outdoors. I go skiing, hiking, mountain biking, camping 3-4 times a week. Where I live (the Alps), it is extremely difficult to not own a car. There is no infrastructure and the terrain is unfriendly.

There isn't a housing or location option in Europe that allows me to give up my car and have access to the things I like to do

[fulafel]

Usually you can also comfortably live in a small city few km from its center and have good outdoor options.

People will need to compromise of course. The alternative, not beating global warming is a big compromise too.

[clarry]

> The alternative, not beating global warming is a big compromise too.

It's not either-or. Owning a private car in the Alps and using it for the occasional shopping or skiing trip is far from being the main source of CO2 emissions for their respective country, let alone for the world.

[fulafel]

The cost structure of private cars (big fixed cost, thereafter low marginal cost per km) and convenience works against this. Yeah, there are always exceptions, but these planning decisions should be made by considering people in aggregate.

Re "not the main source" - the co2 emission pie is very fragmented. We can't afford to go after only the biggest source of emissions. This is the divide-and-not-conquer method of losing this battle, to consider all the little parts in isolation and on each decide that it's not significant!

[ATsch]

I personally think online car rental is very adequate for this. Locally, there's a number of very affordable services (usually there's tiers of membership fees that gives you steep discounts) that do this and I know many people that don't own cars but instead use this service somewhat regularly. Especially the flexibility of being able to pick up any type of car at a whim is very useful.

[pjmlp]

Assuming one can get a house at an affordable rate to start with.

It doesn't scale because not everyone is rich enough to live close to transportation hubs nor they can take everyone that wants to live nearby.

[fulafel]

Housing supply and transport infra mostly responds to demand without pricing out people. Outside of urban hotspots where rent seeking rules.

Most cities, and most people's home vicinities, are not land cramped like the world's megacities.

[pjmlp]

Come to Europe to the cities where one actually finds a job and then try to use the public transportation for that 1h 30m commute time, easily done in 30m with a car.

[fulafel]

Already there, but it's not like that. 1h 30m in public transport would get me to another town.

[lb1lf]

While urbanisation overall is probably a net plus for the environment, do keep in mind that, say, farming is quite area intensive.

Someone needs to work at those farms - and they are not going to commute to work by high-speed rail.

(Granted, there are experimental urban farms out there, but I don't see those feeding the planet on a short-term scale.)

[adrianN]

Farming is area intensive, but the number of farmers we need has been steadily declining.

[xkcd-sucks]

> And for decision-makers it's responsible to nudge your citizenship to this direction

Is the flip side of this "People who want to live in solitude are not qualified to make decisions"?

[fulafel]

You can live in solitude quite ecologically without a car too of course. Nudge =! force

[xkcd-sucks]

"Nudge" is the 21st century version of "force", as it's been realized that "force" provokes backlash

[fulafel]

It means a different thing.

[clarry]

> You can pick your housing and location based on not owning a car

If all I ever wanted from life was to go to work and back to my apartment, via a grocery store.

As a matter of fact, I can't choose where my friends and relatives live, and I'd probably have to drop some of my hobbies too if I were to live without a car.

[adrianN]

You will probably have to drop some of your hobbies too if we don't manage to limit Global Warming to below 2 degrees.

[clarry]

Yeah, well, I did things the other way around and picked my job around not having a commute. That means remote, I work from my apartment.

I still have a car, but I drive much less than those who commute by car every day. It might be sitting unused in the lot for weeks (I have my feet & bicycle for grocery store trips). But when I need it, I need it, the public infra and ridesharing simply isn't there. (But I occasionally give rides and haul stuff for people who don't own a car, hey, isn't that exactly what we need?)

As far as global warming is concerned.. well, one glance at the statistics shows that my car ownership couldn't matter less. For example, if you take the top polluters (China & USA) and compare to my country (Finland), and break it down by sector, you'll find that our transportation's contribution to CO2 emissions in the world is a fraction of nothing.

As far as domestic energy consumption goes, we've cold winters, and heating is the biggest drain. There's a lot that could be done to improve the energy efficiency of older homes without spending too much money but the will isn't there. The only way we get heat efficient buildings reliably is via regulation that applies to new buildings.

[fulafel]

It doesn't make sense to quantize emissions by country to decide whether your choices matter. (Or by by other attributes)

[fulafel]

The change is going to have to affect your friends and relatives too.

You can always adjust your hobbies, or work. Global warming is more important.

[clarry]

Doesn't mean they'll be living next door all of a sudden!

[maccam94]

Except lithium ion batteries are very recyclable, and rare earth elements aren't in limited supply, they're just usually very sparsely distributed.

[justasimpleman]

Wear from car tires cause the majority of microplastics that get into the seas (around 50%, if I'm reading understanding this study correctly):

http://epanet.pbe.eea.europa.eu/ad-hoc-meetings/workshop-pla...

[justasimpleman]

At least in 1st world countries. The contribution of those are rather small compared to China and India.

WorldBank Pollution data: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/en.atm.pm25.mc.m3?end=2...

Maplecroft Deforestation Risk 2018 (as opposed to his 2012): https://www.maplecroft.com/insights/analysis/esg-deforestati...

Statista Countries Polluting Oceans (updated version of his): https://www.statista.com/chart/12211/the-countries-polluting...

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/05/1818859116

[justasimpleman]

Also, manufacturing and charging li-io batteries for cars currently still produces more CO2 than petrol vehicles:

https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/lithium-bat...

[calaphos]

The biggest problem with cars, at least in European cities is the amount of space they take. Despite rising rents, making some cities unaffordable for people working there, we still mandate parking spaces for every build flat and use large amounts of space for multi lane roads, tolerating emissions, noise etc. Electric cars don't solve most of that. Making it easier to live in cities without owning a car should be the focus, not electric cars

[fulafel]

I think the industrial scale, cost efficient recycling bit is untried, and we don't know if it will come to wide use soon enough to help with co2 footprint of cars?

[jordanbeiber]

This is ideal.

Unfortunately the society has been pushed into “car as a requirement” territory for ages.

I commend the effort, and I’d like to not need a car... perhaps I don’t, but it will require a few major changes.

It’s crazy that car pools are not more common, btw.

[xedeon]

> Instead we should heavily invest in high-speed trains.

This is ideal for obvious reasons. If only cities and governments (especially in the U.S.) would see the value. But alas it seems like only some countries can pull it off.

Also, most EV batteries today are highly recyclable and with fewer moving parts they can last much longer than ICE cars.

[Dumblydorr]

I love investment in trains but in the USA, small improvements to investment wouldn't be close to enough. We need EVs because the political will is simply not there for any infrastructure spending. Its either EVs or more emissions, sad state of affairs.