[543g43g43]

>But they aren't going away

Why? And if not, why can't we apply your argument to other things, eg, coal power plants?

>Even if you could get rid of most cars, that wouldn't be enough, and it wouldn't be able to happen quickly enough to avoid electrification.

Estimates for the lifetime CO2 savings of EVs vary from 40% to 70%. Assuming the be best case (70%), the CO2 impact would only be the same as "getting rid of most cars", which you say isn't enough.

[aussieshibe]

> Why?

Comfort, convenience, speed, separation from other people, etc, etc. Changing the balance there requires significant investment in alternatives which doesn't seem to be forthcoming (at least in my country).

We can't apply the same arguments to power plants because we don't have to go to / see / interact with the power plant in order to use electricity. It just appears at the wall socket like magic. Where it comes from is functionally irrelevant to the consumer.

[ericmay]

This isn't a good comparison. A more appropriate one would be to compare the environmental damage, cost, and deaths due to cars to the "wall socket like magic" versus seeing a physical car on the road. You don't have to go to the hospital to see people who were maimed, and you don't really see the strip mining taking place to create cars, for example.

[aussieshibe]

What? I'm not making any comparison I think?

The person I replied to said (paraphrasing) "Why aren't cars going away? If they aren't, why can't you make the same arguments about coal power plants".

I'm saying:

- Cars aren't going away because they are much better than any available alternative for a large number of people from a short term perspective

- The same can't be said of coal power because electricity is electricity is electricity, there is no immediate difference, so the longer term differences have a greater impact on decision making

[ericmay]

> We can't apply the same arguments to power plants because we don't have to go to / see / interact with the power plant in order to use electricity

My reading was that you were comparing physical presence of cars + coal plants and also the negative externalities of coal plants but not accounting for the negative externalities of cars.

But I may have misread and I apologize if I did :)

[543g43g43]

>Comfort, convenience, speed,

Didn't realise these were valid arguments in the face of the Climate Catastrophe!

>It just appears at the wall socket like magic.

It's by far the most convenient and quickest to burn coal.

[aussieshibe]

> Didn't realise these were valid arguments in the face of the Climate Catastrophe!

They're not even arguments.

I'm not saying that people should keep driving.

I'm answering the question "why aren't cars going away".

Unless you think that people just aren't aware that public transport / riding / walking is more environmentally friendly than driving, the only conclusion I can come up with is that people care more about the factors I mentioned than environmental impact (or at least, that time-discounting of delayed negative externalities is significant).

> It's by far the most convenient and quickest to burn coal.

For who? I'm talking about the factors that influence consumer choice, not producers.

[pfdietz]

How does the Climate Catastrophe justify getting rid of electric cars?

[543g43g43]

Do you know how much CO2 an electric car produces over its lifetime?? We'll never hit our -80% reduction that we need!

[pfdietz]

An electric car produces no CO2 over its lifetime. It uses electricity, not a fossil fuel.

If you are observing that electricity is currently being produced with some fossil fuels, I will respond that we should get rid of fossil generating capacity. This does not require getting rid of electric cars.

In the ultimate zero fossil fuel economy, we can still build and operate electric cars. This will not involve any release of CO2 whatsoever; do you imagine this would create carbon atoms out of nothing?

[543g43g43]

>An electric car produces no CO2 over its lifetime.

It just appears, fully-made and with no CO2 spent on its manufacture?

[wilg]

They're not going away because nobody is seriously talking about getting rid of cars because it makes no sense.

Figure out how to convince people to do it worldwide, figure out how to replace all auto transport with other modes, then build those alternate modes. I'll bet that will take longer and result in more CO2 emissions than electrifying cars.

We don't solve global warming by fantasizing about deleting cars, we solve it with good engineering and passable policy.

[543g43g43]

The Climate Catastrophe doesn't care about what certain groups of people find "sensible".