Electric cars are not actually zero-emission vehicles. “Even if all our vehicles eventually become powered by electricity instead of fossil fuels, we will still have harmful pollution from vehicles because of tyre wear.”
It is important to reduce the amount we drive, not just swap in "green" technologies for our existing habits. EVs take enormous resources to produce, electricity may not always be green, tires release pollution, and people are still killed in crashes.
@mbonsma having personally swept the bits of disintegrating roadway out of 60-some miles of SW Portland's bike lanes in the past week, the asphalt dust is going to be there even if they come up with green tires. And the noise of stroads interferes with birds singing to each other for a large area on both sides. This model will never be green.
@enobacon@mbonsma If only someone came up with lighter vehicles that would damage roads less, and that could move people just as fast, maybe on two wheels instead of four and narrower so the existing travel lanes could have their capacity increased. 🤔
@tk@mbonsma as the owner of a high-occupancy bicycle myself, I would like to be paid what the govt would have spent if I had chosen to drive, especially if I have to elbow my way past lines of car traffic stopped at a red light.
@mbonsma Also, there's the high carbon cost of resource extraction for the batteries and manufacturing, as well as any carbon costs related to the electricity generation itself. There's also a human toll in the extraction industries, and a future environment toll from disposing of the toxic batteries.
And finally, personal vehicles require a lot more paved roads and road maintenance than public transit (or active transportation, when possible), and EVs don't reduce that.
@mbonsma In the end, electric cars exist mainly to help affluent people keep driving large personal vehicles without feeling guilty and to give industrialists something new to invest in, much more than to reduce any impact on the environment. 😕
I try to drive as little as possible. I take the train to & from work. I walk downtown. When I do drive, I try to carpool.
Not everyone, especially in the rural US, has the same opportunities and privileges. But collectively as a society we have to end our addiction to cars. We need pedestrian and transit friendly infrastructure.
@mbonsma Yeah most folks for and against ICE think that's it. Every part of the process that ends in a new tire is super bad for the environment. From the initial manufacturing process, to the use of the product and then the "renewing" of the product... it's all awful.
@mbonsma You're right. And even if somebody else somehow thinks EVs are clean but still acknowledges the climate crisis, then getting rid of currently existing ICE and stopping production of new ones still requires rapidly reducing car use.
Everyone except climate deniers should be trying to transition society away from cars.
@geonz to be honest that's the first and most important reason I'm in this game, but somehow "let's kill fewer people with cars" doesn't seem to persuade everyone 😣
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