Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zamfi 2376 days ago
> Fighting environmental issues

I’m not talking about fighting “environmental issues” — I’m explicitly talking about a) global climate change, which has little to do with ~75% of the environmental impacts of an electric vehicle, and b) not spending $trillions fighting wars due to Western society’s unslakable thirst for oil. [1]

Let’s not goalpost this — mining & refining metals (etc.) is dirty business, and we should clean it up, but to be clear: it has a very limited impact on climate change.

> extra consumption

Extra consumption? I proposed taking the trillions of dollars spent on military equipment, plus fuel for planes, aircraft carriers, and other ships, tanks, etc., not to mention the deaths of thousands of people — war is “consumption” to an absurd degree — and replacing all that with domestic EVs.

Don’t tell me that’s “extra consumption”. If anything it’s a dramatic reduction in consumption.

[1] Whether you believe the war in Iraq was fought for oil or not, oil is a causative factor: without the presence of oil in the Middle East, and the riches its trade brings to the states in the area, it’s unlikely we’d be fighting there.