[reducesuffering]

I'm in agreement that EV's are not a panacea, less cars and consumerism would be better, and the political difficulties of reducing those are especially fraught.

However, since rich westerners did the politically realistic move of increasing emissions standards and EV's, we are actually reducing our emissions[0], instead of doing nothing but hand-wringing that we "should" have less cars and get nowhere because 3/4 of the US won't have it.

Per capita US emissions are down 25% since 2007 and peaked back in 1979.

We help the environment by finding the wins whereever we can politically. If you get too idealistic, you halt progress because the rest of westerners aren't in for the ride.

[0]https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states

[orwin]

I'm pretty sure the move from coal to gas was way more effective at reducing emissions than the "move" from ICE to EV.

[reducesuffering]

Of course it was. Which is why we shouldn't be advocating for purist idealistic moves, but practically what can we do to reduce emissions the most per $.

[FirmwareBurner]

Fair enough. but out of curiosity how much of those emissions are strictly down to EVs?

Because to me it seems emissions went down to tougher broader environmental policies, especially on coal, rather than just people buying EVs now, as ICE cars were only 9% share of emissions anyway, yet people tend act as if they're the main culprit for it.