Remember kids, if you’re not solving climate change entirely in one single step, there’s no point in trying.
Seriously, what a brain dead argument lol
I think it’s under the premise of, of you have a functional car. It you got rid of that and bought an electric, you aren’t helping anything.
There’s a lot wrong with this video as most videos on EVs from 2016. The data is sources for electricity production is actually over a decade old now (Sep 2013) and it rationalizes that the electric cars will break down before the grid ever moves towards greener sources. This is a very silly notion considering solar is straining the grid with too much power at times, times where EVs could charge. They can also charge over night encouraging nuclear power to be more financially feasible as nuclear relies on a base load as they don’t like to turn off.
They’re not a silver bullet and in some cases like the Hummer EV they are worse than an old car but if you have to drive a lot it is completely less carbon intensive than an ICE for most EVs.
Here’s a still pretty old but more nuanced video: https://piped.video/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM
The greenest car is a train car.
Every car on the road being converted to electric with magic wouldn’t fix climate change. If you didn’t also get trucks and SUVs it may not even move the needle Personal car use is not a major cause of climate change. It just doesn’t matter compared to industrial and commercial emissions.
Of course it won’t fix climate change in one go, but doing so would remove a major fossil fuel dependency for your average Joe and make them much more likely to vote against fossil fuels.
Put another way, how many people driving gas cars would vote in favor of heavy taxes on fossil fuel use?
Now, how many would vote that way if they personally didn’t have any dependencies on fossil fuels?
Also, highway vehicles account for 1.5 billion tons of GHGs being emitted each year, that’s 11% of the global yearly GHG emissions, so yeah, it definetely would “move the needle”. In the US specifically it’s as much as 20% of our nations emissions.
And yeah I already know the next argument “bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It” - except you’re not necessarily, in my area (part of CA), you can choose to have 100% of your electricity provided by renewable sources for a small monthly premium ($18/month). Additionally in CA, all new homes are being built with solar power, which further increases your ability to charge without fossil fuels.
And in the areas that isn’t true, it’s at least getting groundwork laid down to make it true. An electric car can be powered by renewable energy, a fossil fuel car must be powered by fossil fuels.
There are a lot of steps to solving climate change beyond “buy an electric car”, and you’re right that industrial and commercial pollution accounts for the majority, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be pushing on all fronts.
We’ve already waited way too long to act, we can’t afford as a species to say “well, I’m not going to change my car until the industrial polluters get their shit together”, we have to push in Every possible direction, all at the same time to make progress, and electric cars overtaking fossil fuel cars is a big part of that.
There’s a lot of work to be done globally until electric cars are 100% green, both in terms of power infrastructure and the processes to create them, but there’s no way forward with gas cars, so we need to start moving over as a society now, phasing out the production of gas cars with electric
Plus, ev’s keep the pollution out of the cities and places we tend to live in.
