Maybe EVs are not a comprehensive climate solution??
Conclusion: To increase the adoption rate of EVs, we must make the vast majority of people wealthy.
Incorrect, but also totally fine by me. 😄
While I think it’s good to raise awareness about carbon footprints, the fact is that carbon footprints of individuals, regardless of their socioeconomic status, pales in comparison to that of corporations. Individuals should be last on the list for reducing carbon footprints when corporations and government inefficiency produces more damage than whole populations of people combined.
Corporations aren’t causing a mass extinction just for shits and giggles, they’re doing it because billions of individuals buy their products and services. If the billions of individuals stopped buying it, the corporations would stop making/offering it. The rich cause more harm in the short term, but even poor people having more kids despite the biosphere not being able to sustainably support even a fraction of the current population, are more omnicidal in the longer term.
You’re right that bad consumer choices like choosing fast fashion or inefficient vehicles result in more harm than good. Though there are places where people don’t have a choice, like in what farms do to produce their meats and produce, and how it’s transported.
What energy sources we use and agriculture are bigger contributors to emissions than consumer goods. Even if people stop buying, manufacturing will happen for war and construction. Reducing emissions is a systems problem, it’s not about telling people to “be more green”. That’s a bandaid for a gushing wound.
I don’t think we should blame people if they buy an ICE car, but we should blame them if they don’t vote for progressive politicians who mandate better industry practices and invest in more green energy.
Here’s some data https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
produce their meats
Billions of individuals choose to eat animal products giving money to factory farmers and industrial fishing companies - 2 industries that cause more pain and suffering than all other atrocities ever committed in all of history, combined (1-3 trillion fish are tortured to death every year by fishing companies, and at least hundreds of billions of animals are enslaved in torturous conditions in factory-farms every year). I live in a 3rd world country, and went vegan almost 20 years ago. For the people causing most harm: those in rich countries, it’s easier to be vegan.
For those who can’t grow their own plant-food, there’s still this: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-kcal-poore
Reducing emissions is a systems problem, it’s not about telling people to “be more green”
It’s both: “No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.”
That doesn’t really seem to be a particularly useful study. You could probably find the exact same thing by selecting for owners of very expensive bicycles, but you would be proving exactly the same thing (which is nothing at all).
A more reasonable approach would be to split into cohorts of different levels of wealth and then compare internally between those cohorts, to see the difference in emissions of an EV owner/transit rider/biker/ICE owner is.
My gut feeling says that we’d find them ranked on the following order, from lowest emissions to highest:
- Biker
- Transit rider
- EV owner
- ICE owner
It would be interesting to check whether that gut feeling holds in real life, and particularly how much the groups differ on a per-cohort basis.
Are people wealthier because they own an EV, or are people who own an EV generally wealthier?
”The researchers found that people who purchase EVs tend to be wealthier than average”
In other words: OP is barking up the wrong tree as the EVs have little to no correlation with the non-EV-related carbon footprint of the EV owners.
Unless, of course, if OP is implying that EVs are too hard to acquire for the less wealthy consumers, though I somehow doubt that.
Isn’t this kind of obvious? But it has nothing to do with EVs themselves. If we count it like this, iphone owners should also have a bigger footprint. I don’t think anybody is claiming EVs would eliminate all issues.
I guess in the ideal world wealthier people should actually emit less as they could use greener but more expensive services
It’s obvious for everyone with basic logic skills.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t try and twist the fact for anti-EV propaganda. Because it’s really, really, really important we keep burning oil… if you are someone selling oil and have the money to spread bullshit for personal gains that is.
I agree with you, but I also hate EVs. Mostly because I think public transport is superior. But I still support it as a driving alternative. It’s just the world’s biggest half-measure.
This is where I stand. EVs are not necessarily bad, but they are a bad solution to transportation emissions when compared to alternatives. It isn’t enough to just convert all cars to EVs, we should still be building more walkable places and expanding transit networks.
Makes sense. I don’t know any EV owners that aren’t really well off financially.
