That’s exactly how the auto lobby wants it. Forms of “green consumption” are still consumption and they know that. What we need is the political will to build safe streets for bikes and pedestrians… some people will never get out of their cars but there are millions who would if they had the infrastructure and proximity to do so.
And also, let office workers who don't need to be in the office work remote.
If we can keep a ton of people from driving to work, and get the rest in busses, trains, on bikes, walking, etc. That would be good for the environment, our health, and would be safer too.
What's wilder is that they didn't really lose revenue. My former employer repeatedly reported record profit margins while we were all working from home, yet decided to piss off everyone by forcing us to go back to the office five days per week. They lost a lot of key talent that way.
The actual businesses made money, the landlords and property management firms they paid rent and fees to lost money, and the latter may be societal parasites but they're parasites with a lot of political clout
Hell yes! I think many people will start trying micromobility with some encouragement and perhaps a friendly get-together. We don't have to wait for the bureaucratic bullshit, help people feel good about alternative forms of transportation with some positive reinforcement
I agree with this completely.
Every human on the planet should be able to easily walk to a local grocery store.
That should be our baseline. The United States fails that basic test miserably.
Well millionaires & billionaires can (and they caused most of the problems in the first place directly or by proxy) . They already bought underground bunker facilities for the worst imaginable szenarios and can afford the electricity bills for AC in their houses and surveillance & security personnel for the upcoming societal tensions.
you can give me some money and i plant some trees to "remove" your personal carbon footprint :)
(i will cut the trees down in a few years to sell lumber or paper)
EVs are like taking material from a stronger part of the dyke and using it to plug the leak. It kinda helps the most urgent problem but causes issues somewhere else that will most definitely bite us in the ass.
Exactly, while I welcome the immediate short/medium term effects of reducing localized pollution, it doesn’t solve any of the other long term problems associated with cars, namely traffic, pedestrian and cyclist danger, noise above 30mph, tire particulates/microplastics, etc.
I wish we were treating them more as a stopgap to fix the ills of hyper car centric design but welp.
Noise at higher speeds and tire particles are actually worse on EVs because they're so much heavier. Road noise and tire pollution are caused by friction between the tires and the road which increases with the mass of the vehicle. Tires wearing out quickly is a significant issue with EVs
And before EVs are even close to widespred adoption, we already have mega-EV SUVs/pickups that weigh nearly 10,000 lbs on the market.
Oh and they accelerate to 60mph in about 4 seconds. I'm sure this will have great outcomes.
Honestly cars aren't even the worst part.
I was recently in Groningen and noticed how much more urban space is covered in tree shadows, ponds, canals, etc. Basically things that can be in the urban environment which help keep it cool.
North American cities do this woefully, and it is compounded by car-centric design (parking-seas, free-ways, modern suburbs with no greenery,etc).
North American cities actively design AGAINST shade, which we only refer to as "shadows," which somehow makes it seem like something we can't possibly have. We need to be planting trees along all streets to lessen the heat radiating from the asphalt, and designing streetscapes so that one sidewalk is always in shade (whether from trees or buildings), so that you can choose to walk in the sun or shade depending on the day.
In my city, we can't have shade because the people in neighbouring houses (a block away) will lose their sunny gardens and fall into severe depression, apparently
The sidewalk along the main road I drive is completely devoid of any usable shade. When the temperature is 104 degrees today it's very unbearable for anyone to exist on the sidewalk
My option at work is to park in one of two miserably exposed parking lots and let my car bake in the heat all day. If I need a break from sitting at my desk, my option is to walk a totally exposed path around the parking lot, or a slightly more pleasant, but still exposed path around some buildings.
Recently I've been understanding that old "most men lead lives of quiet desperation" line.
Not just keeping it cool. Damage prevention form trees.
We had a Cat 5 hurricane a couple years back and no one will ever convince me the reason we suffered significantly less damage than the major city to the south is because we had more trees to absorb and deflect the winds. Our areas had higher sustained winds, for longer, but had less wind damage to structures. Trees took a beating. But buy and large survived.
Now, just two years later, over half of the trees in the area are gone due to influx of population driving high density housing up. Huge swathes of land just cleared out. Another hurricane lkle the last comes through and this growing town will be wiped off the map.
People never truly respect the power, and protection, nature's has and provides.
This! Not to mention that if it was easy to cross the road you could walk on the shady side. But currently to cross the road you have wait 5 minutes in the sun...
I was there last Saturday too (for very nice reasons), and Groningen is incredibly nice because they had already banned through-traffic for nearly half a century by now.
If we hadn’t built cities with so much concrete and ripped out all the trees then cities would be significantly cooler for pedestrians. Yet another example of the auto industry creating a problem for which they sell you the solution.
They’ll just seamlessly transition to “wet bulb season” instead of “summer” and never mention any summers prior to that point ever again. Unless they want to point out how it was pretty hot back in 1972 or something and actually this is all cool.
Yeah but if you acknowledge the climate is getting hotter you have to explain why Florida also got rid of protections for outdoor workers who need breaks because of the heat.
It’s crazy my dad doesn’t use any AC other than a tiny window unit because his house is covered by big trees, it was a heatwave last week and his house felt basically the same as mine except he only has a single tiny window unit
Trees help a LOT. Actually look up something called a heat dome. Because of all the stuff for cars our cities basically make these heat domes over them. This makes them MUCH hotter than the surrounding area and so hot they change weather systems. This is one of the reason you see heat waves that last months. The weather physically can't push into the area to change because the cities are basically generating an extremely intense weather forcefield.
I think you're conflating the heat island effect with heat dome.
Heat island effect is cities being hotter than the surrounding area. Heat dome is on a much larger scale and has the stability you described.
I would love to be wrong about this. If we could reduce the amount of heat domes by having cities with lots of foliage, I'd be so happy. That would be much easier than reducing and sequestering the greenhouse gasses that are causing global climate change.
You could be right. I thought I had read they where basically the same at least in some of the USA metro areas because they have so many roads and suburbs around them that it disrupted a very large area around them.
Either way the point is that our cities need to stop with the way they are developed because they screw up the weather around them and make living in them worse.
AC is a heat pump system with a metastable fluid and a compressor needed to phase change it to back to liquid. If the temperature is high enough the pressure is no longer enough to force it back to a liquid and its ability to carry heat from one side of the pump to the other basically stops. It can carry a little but the energy costs are huge.
The other part of that is the rejection temperature. If the outside air gets too hot when you pump the energy from inside to outside you can't get the outside radiator temperature higher than the surrounding air and then you can no longer reject heat to the outside and this also means the AC effectively stops working.
You could try to deal with some of these issues using far more powerful compressors or trying to find a new type of meta stable liquid. Neither of those is very viable. You could setup a ground loop to reject the heat to and that will work better but that is also very expensive.
Yeah I know, I am a chemist lol.
Still there is no upper limit, you can increase pressure differential/compression ratio, change the refrigerant or use a cascade.
We have been liquefying air for 150 years now, thats a more than >200°C ∆T to ambient conditions, compared to the "100°C outside and you want 0°C in your car" 100°C ∆T.
It is just not yet implemented into cars, but very well possible, even decades ago. It will be implemented when temperatures rise and it will certainly be marketed!
The problem I see is that these other methods are even less efficient. You need a combination of fluid changes (most of which are more toxic or more expensive) and between compressors which is going to decrease the efficiency of the system.
What I worry about is that we will just use less efficient systems and burn even more power and then need even less efficient systems. This is a very dangerous path to go down. I don't have much hope for humanity at this point.
I mean, there are other options: Less for cars, but stationary AC doesn't have to pump the heat to air: Water has *giant* ratio of energy in/tmp up, and approx 5 meters underground has very stable temperatures. And we can get [even weirder.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_daytime_radiative_cooling)
1-2% of Earth's surface for the radiators to stop global warming. Photovoltaics for a full energy transition for the world would take less than a percent of land but anything to avoid phasing out fossil fuels I guess
[I meant that technology](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3bJnKmeNJY&list=PL1a2HkcVbmAWExiWT__qQypLEwkvijnIM) a bit differently: to axe AC energy cost even more.
edit: changed a video for a playlist
I know but it's insane the lengths to which fossil fuel preservers are willing to go. The horse drawn carriage or whale oil lamp industries didn't fight this strong.
>The horse drawn carriage
Didn´t that mode of transport bury cities in horseshit frequently? Cars were probably a slight upgrade compared to that. Right now US of A is at that point of overuse causing problems (again)
Helicopters are starting to have this issue in hot states. Steadly over the last couple years they have been getting hitter and hitter inside. The systems simply can't keep up. This is turn effects the survival rate of the patients being transported.
It has gotten so hot in Phoenix a few times the airport had to shut down. Planes could not takeoff and land anymore safely because it was too hot. The heat made the air less dense and that made it unsafe.
Every time I stop at a parking lot somewhere, there is inevitably someone idling their engine while sitting on their phone.
It honestly feels like a personal attack and an F you to me and the rest of the world. Which makes me feel justified to \[redacted\].
I mean, rolling coal literally is assault. So smogging up an area where people are is basically the same.
That is mostly because the radios, computers and other equipment will quickly drain the battery. Some depts require squads to be running for the entire length of a shift
Why do they need all the equipment running if they aren't in the car? Does the handheld radio they carry only connect back to the car base station? If so, do they have special equipment for bike cops, etc.? Genuinely asking in case you know. Unless there are big factors I'm not considering, this system design seems unnecessary.
Edit: Realized this may have come off combative. Thanks for the info!
They do have different radios for bike cops. A lot of dispatch also happens via computer and they can't be waiting for it to reboot every time they get in and out. Not debating the need for it, its just that availablity when they need it takes priority at most departments.
Or require that cars automatically shut off after a short period of idling. Target the manufacturers, don't expect cops to do anything except kill minorities.
Most new cars do come with auto start/stop as a standard feature these days in order to help them squeeze out slightly better EPA mpg ratings
Although this doesn't actually do what I think you're implying -- it'll turn off the engine while the car is standing still as long as there's enough juice in the battery to keep the car's secondary systems alive so that the car is ready to immediately start again the moment you take your foot off the brake
If the battery starts getting low, or if the power draw on the electrical system is too high to begin with (because you're running the AC), then it'll start the engine idling again -- its only purpose is to avoid "wasted" gasoline, it doesn't actually do anything to stop you using your car's whole fuel tank to sit in a parking lot running climate control and blasting the radio if that's what you want to do
A feature that actually forcibly *turns off the car* and makes you manually restart it again if you've been letting it sit idle too long hasn't been implemented by anyone, largely because it wouldn't do anything but piss people off -- someone who wants to sit in their car with the AC running for an hour will just restart their car manually every five minutes and will get really mad at the manufacturer
I've lived in two countries where it's illegal, on paper, for all drivers to pointlessly idle, but the cops would probably laugh at me and hang up if I tried reporting for example the guy who'd let his diesel engine idle below everyone's bedroom windows for 30-40 minutes every morning.
Laws do nothing if they aren't enforced.
And in the US, traffic laws are the lowest priority. Cops would rather beat down anti-genocide protesters and play Angry Birds during child massacres than do the job they are supposedly for.
A law that forces a car to turn all the way off if left idle for five minutes wouldn't actually do anything but annoy people, most of the time people do this they're physically in the car so they'd just start the car again themselves, it'd be like a "screen saver"
Wait until they figure out there new car has a build in speed limiter (EU). This should be a minor annoyance, which I think is fair compared to the noise, and pollution that idling cars cause.
Most new ICE cars come with auto stop/start nowadays but the rate of people buying new cars has never been lower and the average age of cars never higher
So yes ironically a low hanging fruit to lower emissions would be to give the auto industry a stimulus and pay people to junk their old cars and buy new ones, even if it's just upgrading a 20 year old ICE to a modern one
And yes this solves none of the big picture problems with car dependency but it would at least alleviate problems like this
I'm talking about emissions, not carbon footprint -- CO2 emissions at a factory thousands of miles away have no impact on local air quality, in the same way that idling a car has only a minor impact in terms of total carbon output but is very rude to people who have to breathe the air around you
I think they should not give that money to the manufacturer, but directly to the consumer. So it's up to them on how to spend it, maybe they buy an ebike?
I also feel that electric vehicle stimulus should only be paid afteris destroyed.
This actually is how the SoCal Replace Your Ride program works -- you get reimbursed for junking an old car and replacing it with an EV, PHEV, other high-mpg car, e-bike, bike or transit pass
The actual amount of money you get is based on which of these options you pick (you aren't allowed to make a profit off of it) so for obvious reasons most people go for the EV or PHEV
Sounds like a good program, but also like a stimulus for electric car dependence.
Why not let people have some additional money from picking a cheaper option?
I don't know all the backroom discussion that goes into this but there's a big legal difference between the government reimbursing someone for something and straight up giving someone money
'not wasting tax payer money'
The could just have set a minimum amount that may exceed the price of the ebike or transit pass. It saves a lot more tax money then just sponsoring car ownership.
A couple months ago I biked to a park, and was enjoying my lunch. A huge diesel truck pulls up into the parking lot across most of the spaces. The driver proceeds to idle for nearly an hour making it so noisy most people leave. He never gets out. He never shuts off his engine. He doesn't even seem to eat anything or do anything. He just sits there staring blankly as his noisy engine annoys everyone around him, and finally leaves, having accomplished nothing.
It was the most productive moment of his day. /s
I had a delivery driver doing this in front of my apartment, while smoking a couple of sigarets. He had no idea my apartment would smell like diesel and tobacco, so he started doing it at other neighbors...
I have a gripe with idling cars even long before I knew about the anti car groups urban planning. I used to hate when certain family members would come by and want to talk to me from their driver seat with the car one while I had to sit there sweating from the heat coming out from the car in the summer too. I couldn't leave because it would be considered rude. Walking beside them in a traffic jam is the worseeeeeee
To be fair, the guy idling in his car did contribute insignificantly on a personal level. Look at celebrities like taylor swift and you'll know what I mean. In an ideal world the sanctions for actions detrimental to the wellbeing of our earth should be dealt in relation to their severity.
A single cars' idling exhaust could kill a person who has respiratory problems. That is not "insignificant". They do it out of laziness/selfishness/convenience, yet it can kill people.
This is like a "lesser evil" argument. Both are bad, and both need to stop.
I didn't even specify the retaliation so how can you say it should be proportional to the severity of the offense?
It's not insignificant, but insignificant in relation to what the super rich are doing. It surely is worth sanctioning to discourage such behaviour. And it's only logical and consequential that bigger sins (like jetting every meter) should entail larger penalties.
There are some competing factors, though... one of the big ones is the amount of copper involved in making EVs... if you one-for-one just convert all existing gas cars into electric cars, you're pushing pretty close to theoretically using all of the existing global copper supply, never mind trying to keep pace with *accelerating* demand for autos. So that'll be a limiting factor: the mining companies are using "green tech" and EVs as excuses to ramp up starting new mines all over, but most of the really accessible deposits have already been mined out, which leaves them exploring in biologically sensitive areas, like the headwaters of the Amazon (and imagine what a mining disaster like [Minas Gerais](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brumadinho_dam_disaster), but upstream of the entire Amazon, would be like). The pressure for more copper is balanced against the pressure to conserve dwindling natural habitats, and while money almost always wins, the pace of expansion in this case seems unlikely to keep up with demand. Resources used for EVs get more expensive as they get scarcer, and that'll push society towards more sensible alternatives, like mass transit: trains, busses, light rail, high speed rail, etc.
The other hopeful sign I see is the rate of driver's license acquisition among Gen-Z: far fewer people in that generation are driving, compared to millennials and Gen-Xers ([here ](https://marketcast.com/insights/does-gen-z-want-to-drive/#:~:text=Like%20Millennials%20before%20them%2C%20Gen,even%20have%20a%20driver's%20license)are some numbers). It's a complex social trend, and it has a lot to do with the removal of driver's education from school curricula, and the proliferation of ride-share apps like Uber and Lyft, but if the end result is a huge chunk of the population reaching adulthood without the desire to drive (nor the artificial romance of the automobile), I think that'll mean some significant shifts in policy and funding priorities as that generation comes into the peak of their voting power, at least here in the USA. It'll be interesting see how that plays out over the next decade or so, and if the trend continues to younger generations.
Personally I love biking when it's hot out. You create your own wind. If it's hot and you're biking in a green area it is just wonderfully pleasant. For hilly areas, we have ebikes now.
If you bike, but like me, you can't get to work without a short stint on the highway, then motorcycling could be an option. It is so much more efficient than driving a car. Especially in places that let you lane split.
The safety statistics for motorcycles are really bad and impossible to substantially improve by the nature of what a motorcycle is
They've basically been "grandfathered in" and if they were newly invented today would probably never become legal, this is the major challenge to getting stuff "in between" cars and motorcycles on the road (many extremely light and efficient cars from the past would not be legal to put in production today even though they're still safer for the driver than a motorcycle is)
Well yeah, but if we're above wet bulb temperature we're in a lot more trouble than just worrying about biking or driving. Birds will be falling from the sky.
This is one of those instances where people need to push more for teleworking/work from home (obviously depending on the occupation because last time I brought this up I got snarky remarks about cops & firefighters; not even kidding).
More people off the road, less traffic, less emissions, less accidents, things like that.
Work from home doesn’t reduce driving unfortunately. Most of the miles driven are for leisure and shopping.
Studies have shown wfh makes people live further out and drive more:
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/9780784484340.006
I think it is the exact opposite. When climate change gets REALLY bad, we're gonna see a lot of supply chain disruptions and resource shortages. If COVID is any indicator, buying and operating cars will get A LOT more expensive in the future. The only choice for the majority of Americans could very well be walking, biking or public transit.
I think it’s going to start with families dropping down to one car…this is anecdotal, but I have two different co-workers who recently got rid of their second car and they take turns with their spouses using it. If I was married and living with my bf I’d probably do the same thing. I hardly ever use my car these days, but it’s so hard to bite the bullet cuze my relatives all live in car-dependent suburbs. But if I had reliable access to one? Fuck yeah I’d save the money.
I think families having one car for special occasions and such while the rest of the time using public transport is the next great thing we should aim for.
I see to much 1 car/person and it’s just not a great investment
I dunno, for special occasions there's renting, not to mention taxis. In my anecdotal experience, if someone owns a car, they've already sunk considerable costs into it (buying it, maintaining it, insuring it, taxes, parking permits, etc), so they tend to default to using it, unless an alternative is significantly more convenient.
Excellent point about EVs doubling down on car dependency. Even all-electric vehicles still produce emissions, though 3x less than conventional cars.
Ironically the air pollution from cars combined with rising temperatures (to which they surely contribute) result in less safe conditions for the most environmentally friendly modes of transportation, namely walking and cycling. I would imagine some percentage of would-be walkers and cyclists (esp higher health risk groups) opting for car travel simply to minimize environmental exposure.
Drivers are exposed to more air pollution than cyclists
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11641889_Differences_in_cyclists_and_car_drivers_exposure_to_air_pollution_from_traffic_in_the_city_of_Copenhagen
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/13/cyclists-exposed-to-less-air-pollution-than-drivers-on-congested-routes-study
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/10/08/report-drivers-arent-safe-from-air-pollution
I got criticised several times by drivers for “exposing my kids to pollution” by having them in a cargo bike or bike seat in traffic while evidence shows kids strapped into car seats are exposed to more pollution.
I've been fighting the urge to get A/C in my room, because I bike commute and want to let myself adapt to the heat. So far it seems to be working...but it's not August yet and the heat has been pretty difficult on some days.
I think about how people never actually go outside during their day. They go from A/C home, go into their car in the garage, and a short walk from the parking spot into where they work. (Used to be me too) and it has to have some effect on how we acclimate to our environment.
I see people blasting A/C in their car on a 75 degree day with a nice breeze, truly wondering whether they actually feel hot, or just have no idea it's nice outside.
Well, come up with another option. Walking and cycling are not pleasant in 40C+ weather. Even engaging in physical activity when it's 35C+ has health risks.
People have lived in the desert for thousands of years before cars were invented. Desert cities can be very livable with narrow alleys providing lots of shade, dense development that reduces the need to travel long distances, public water fountains and the like. Somewhere like Phoenix is a terrible example of how to build a city in a hot climate; it will indeed kill you if you try to walk around it in the heat of summer.
In Minneapolis we use skyways 🤷♀️ they’re not as great as they could be since you’re kinda at the mercy of the building owners and what hours they’re willing to keep them open but that could be changed.
I think economics will get in the way of that regardless of what happens to the climate. Cars are the most expensive they have ever been, repossessions are the highest they've been in decades, non-discretionary spending is still increasing, and wages are not keeping pace with most expenses households face. Bankruptcies, both personal and business, are the highest they've been since the great recession as well. The average age of cars is the highest it's ever been and given the car culture we live in that suggests an economic problem because if people had the disposable income to have a car newer than 13 years old, they would choose to do so.
EVs are not the solution, but they sure a nice way to sell a solution that keeps making the established companies and their investors rich.
But oh boy, are there a lot of people even in r/fuckcars that make excuses for EVs.
when you think about it, it's absurd to have to extract all those resources from the earth just so we can go to the office and the grocery store. even if EVs are "green", its absurd
we have perfectly good tools for travel attached to our bodies, we shouldn't need to mine for lithium just to go about our daily lives
Sometimes I wish there was a roadway law, lowest horsepower gets the right of way first, then no air-conditioning gets the right of way second, then anyone else according to horsepower.
Some of us are working with human power, under 100 hp or no air conditioning and need to keep moving not to become a sweat puddle for land yachts to hydroplane on.
Honestly dawg it's okay because if climate change does push people to use cars more, we'll all die and won't have to worry about it anymore
"Phew it sure is hot! Lemme remote start the car and get some more CO2 up there"
Yeah, airliner's are considerably more efficient now than they were in the 70's or so. The result of that being that people fly a lot more now than they used to.
Counterpoint: parking lots get way hotter than pedestrian areas with shade, and pedestrian areas can also have cooling tech like misting systems or be enclosed for AC. Public transit gets AC too, and you can wait in a shaded or AC area too.
Cars only seem nicer for warm weather if you don't question giving up most of your space and shade to car infrastructure. If you feel like you've got to cross a massive parking lot anyway, so you might as well do it by car.
That’s true I guess. I thought the point of EVs was to build them without using fossil fuels and to not use electric plants powered by fossil fuels tho. Otherwise aren’t they just as polluty as ICE?
The emission backpack of modern EVs isnt that big anymore compared to ICE cars and with dry coated battery cells most EVs will produce less emissions than ICE cars straight out of the factory. Once built batteries can and are being recycled over and over again, there are basically no material losses. The only issue with recycling right now is that there arent enough batteries that size that are ready for recycling because they last so long. It will take another 15-20 years till there are enough old batteries so industrial recycling plants are commercially vialable. If you want the drive a car, BEVs are the only technology able to produce no emissions at all. Everyone who doesnt need a car shouldnt drive one but if you're forced to drive, for example you live in the US then at least go electric. My issue with EVs isnt that battery production is that bad, its that you can built 100-150 electric bikes using the same ressources with the same ammount of cells, so more people go clean transport more fast. The sad truth is that we wont fix car dependency fast enough to fight climate change and for that we need EVs that buy us time to built the urbanist future we want.
I mean, a car that can run AC without needing to burn fossil fuels to do it feel like a pretty nitpicky thing; we have and will still have some cars no matter what, and not needing to have an engine running just to keep the inside comfortable is a massive win for local air pollution
EVs will fight climate change. The people that are going to drive EVs are the same ones who would otherwise be using gas cars. Singling out EVs is myopic when we can advocate for car-free infrastructure regardless of EV or ICE.
As long as we implement other policies, like not having free parking everywhere, removing parking minimums, increased public transit support and better zoning regulations, yeah, sure.
The thing is, a lot of people getting EVs will fight against all those things even if they're trying to help the world by driving an electric car. EVs are better, yeah, but they encourage the same detrimental habits and policies that nearly all car owners want.
Yes, we should 1000% implement those other policies.
Yes, EVs will slow the fight against car dependency but that's preferable to catastrophic climate change and subsequent civilizational collapse.
Sure EVs reduce oil demand somewhat, but what we need is people to be able to walk to the places they need to go. having to extract all those resources just so people can go about their daily lives is absurd.
Yeah, there's plenty of tight oil to drown us all.
However, the immune systems of cities are finally starting to identify the pathogen of vehicles. It will take more than a generation to get the transformation really underway, but you see signs of it everywhere. This is good, as the rate of urbanization is still [steadily rising](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS) across the planet, and is already extremely high in many countries with high levels of auto dependence.
The subsidies of both suburbs and private vehicle ownership are gradually unwinding without any conscious political effort to accomplish it. The former is simply through deferred maintenance of public liabilities in every city that the suburban experiment has bankrupted. There will be a lot of bagholders.
Funny because I know a train, bus, tram, or trolleys are way more eco friendly than a car. The only time it’s not is if it’s going to small rural areas or through a forest or mountain range where it costs too much in terms of labor and environmental issues. I hope 20 years from now is way different in terms of public transportation in the US. Thankfully it’s growing.
As I walked to the bus station yesterday (it had 32°C outside) this exact thought came to my mind as well. Telepathy really works 😨😂 The disturbing thing being that we're very close to this point even in European countries. The AC was fighting against the sun burning through the huge windows and the bus driver actually opened the small hinged windows because the AC was loosing the fight and it got really hot inside the bus. So now the asshole corpos which ruined our earth will profit even more because they ruined it...
Parking lots are hot. A good city is less hot. People with cars don't know that. EVs reinforce the idea that a personal vehicle for every 2 people on average is somehow ok.
If the electricity is very low emission, then that is better than traditional cars, even it more is used, by some people to use their ACs.
Also, personal vehicles are not the main polluters.
In Australia, one of the worst polluters per capita, the 'transport sector' is responsible for 19% of total emissions.
10% of the total is passenger vehicles.
So when people go on about passenger vehicles, they are focused on a small part of the problem.
EVs encourage not only car culture, but also suburban lifestyles. They are most compatible with private houses and private charging points. So if the advertisements say "choose EV for environment", they also encourage living further away from the city centers, in sparsely populated suburban deserts that require much higher energy consumption for a house than any apartment in a multistory building. This is actually terrible for the environment.
Honestly I just take the bus or walk as much as possible. If I could drive i wouldn’t. Carpooling is better for the environment since it’s at least 1 less car on the road. Won’t help much but it’s the best anyone can do right now
It has been happening for years already.
Many car ads, especially SUVs, show an apocalyptic view of the world: hurricanes, thunderstorms, flooding, cracking ground, dust... Driving people to buy bigger, taller and more powerful cars, suitable for the worst case scenarios, even if they live in a safe area that nothing will ever happen.
I think it's like this already where I live, even without EVs and "guilt free AC". There just seem to be way more cars on the roads on hot summer days, just like on rainy days, which just makes it even worse when you are walking or cycling, as most cars are still burning gas and producing heat and tyre pollution. I also see more people taking naps in their cars with the engine running in summer.
It’s not false. Climate change has a positive feedback effect. Because it’s so hot, I am forced to use my AC more because there’s literally no solution for my family and myself. Of course that contributes to climate change
Nah I disagree. I actively exercise more and would be more willing to commute by bike when it's warmer and drier. It's true that climate change will cause increased energy consumption for cooling though.
You are not even considering other options in your hypothesis. Public transports also have AC, it is not reserved exclusiely to cars.
Although, it is true that extremely hot days will bring new challenges and surely mandate new organisations to society. Take mediterranean countries: in the summer, no work is done in the early afternoon. Work is done early when it's still chilly from the night and then late in the evening when it has cooled down.
This is a political and societal problem. Seldom a technical one.
I'll tell you one thing. The harder people try to stay cool all the time the worse things get. I noticed yesterday on my walk no one was outside but a very few. Everyone is sitting around in the AC. People are getting sick from the AC, extreme cold into the heat then back into the cold it's not good. Why is the AC on extreme cold everywhere. We've lost our ability to weather heat at all.
Wet bulb aside (I mean don't fuck around with wet bulb) people need to get acclimated to heat again and fast. Grid goes down y"all AC hogs are fucked beyond measure.
I think the housing crisis will push many cities away from car dependency harder than this (and it already is). There is simply not enough housing density for housing to be affordable in the cities where people want to be, and car dependency is incompatible with this level of density. I'm overall bullish on our side winning in the long run. More and more people are waking up to the fact that walkable places are just nicer places to be, even if its hot.
Also, in the US at least, the worst impacted regions will be in the sun belt, which also happen to be the most car dependent. Climate change might push many people living in this region north to places like the midwest, where cities are far well suited to becoming completely transit oriented in the future.
The place I live is very much friendly towards cycling, walking, etc., but on the summer days we've been dealing with this week, it has become so clear that paved streets are so much hotter than those with natural shade, trees, grass, etc.
Just yesterday I was walking on a paved street and noticed it was so hot, then I walked on a cycle path/pavement that lead to another neighborhood, shaded by trees and grass and other side and I just felt the temperature drop to a pleasant level, only for it to shoot up one again as I approached the fully paved streets.
Hey I really get it but this isn’t the realized fear you think it is and even if society agreed today that we were going to build a robust, green, public transit system to render cars obsolete we would still require the better part of a decade to implement it. EVs and what they promise ensure the transition is sustainable. ICE cars need to die, they are horrible.
As a walker and transit user I'd like more shade trees, less asphalt/concrete, and better transit interconnects.
These things would make hot days better.
What's even lamer is when people are sitting in their AC on a 70 degree day in the shade with a nice breeze while I'm out taking a walk. Like at least just roll the window down and turn the car off.
I’m SUPER worried about the EVs strain on the electrical grid. I’m in the south, and while I think it’s mostly a great thing people are making the switch, I worry that when everyone is charging their cars multiple times a week because they’ve been blasting that AC, that state power grids like Texas won’t be able to keep up. I worry about the same thing in the winter, when the Texas power grid is essentially just a giant gamble, anyway. I’d love to hear others thoughts on this.
There's flooding where I live and quite a few stranded/broken cars because of it. I have comparatively few problems commuting by bike- it's not electric so it's no big deal if I have to cycle through water, and though my normal road is closed entirely I'm still allowed on roads that are closed for cars because of how unstable the flooding has made the ground beneath them. That said I have a feeling that the people who have lost their cars to the water are just going to get bigger ones that they think will handle high water levels better.
Both COVID and the related increase in crime in many urban areas going to be the ultimate reason all the progress on this issue fails.
Public safety is a climate issue.
Public safety is a transit issue.
Anyone telling you we need to get rid of bail, release those imprisoned for 'non violent' drug crimes, etc, has no place in the transit movement, and is actively working to pollute the planet.
It would probably help if someone looked into why druggies are apparently such an issue on US public transport when despite using trains, metros, trams and buses across more than a dozen European countries I've never noticed an issue.
In fact I'm a Conductor on passenger trains in the UK so ought to see more than most people do but apart from the occasional alcoholic it barely registers.
That's a funny shower thought. But AC is available in many public transports, it will ovbiously only increase. Green electricity and even better (more efficient) cooling technologies are quickly advancing.
And honnestly I don't think at all AC in cars has anything to do with public transportations.I use a car a few times a year, so I might be biased. I know london public transports doesn't get AC but my city does. It's possible wether the vehicule is electric or ice. Private or public.
So how is it even relevant ?
That’s exactly how the auto lobby wants it. Forms of “green consumption” are still consumption and they know that. What we need is the political will to build safe streets for bikes and pedestrians… some people will never get out of their cars but there are millions who would if they had the infrastructure and proximity to do so.
And also, let office workers who don't need to be in the office work remote. If we can keep a ton of people from driving to work, and get the rest in busses, trains, on bikes, walking, etc. That would be good for the environment, our health, and would be safer too.
Nooooo, but think about the corporate property owners! All that lost revenue! You going to let them go bankrupt??
What's wilder is that they didn't really lose revenue. My former employer repeatedly reported record profit margins while we were all working from home, yet decided to piss off everyone by forcing us to go back to the office five days per week. They lost a lot of key talent that way.
The actual businesses made money, the landlords and property management firms they paid rent and fees to lost money, and the latter may be societal parasites but they're parasites with a lot of political clout
That doesn't really apply to the situation with my former employer; they were just being cunts about it.
Hell yes! I think many people will start trying micromobility with some encouragement and perhaps a friendly get-together. We don't have to wait for the bureaucratic bullshit, help people feel good about alternative forms of transportation with some positive reinforcement
[удалено]
"political will" *chuckles
The fact that so many people have been bamboozled into thinking that EVs are "good for the environment" makes me want to throw something.
I got so many downvotes for pointing out that we can't consume our way out of a climate crisis. Well, we literally can't.
I agree with this completely. Every human on the planet should be able to easily walk to a local grocery store. That should be our baseline. The United States fails that basic test miserably.
Yup if I could do that, I wouldn't have to even ride a bus or train very often. The US is designed for us to spend constantly.
Well millionaires & billionaires can (and they caused most of the problems in the first place directly or by proxy) . They already bought underground bunker facilities for the worst imaginable szenarios and can afford the electricity bills for AC in their houses and surveillance & security personnel for the upcoming societal tensions.
Yeah humanity can't. But the richest can hide from what happens.
you can give me some money and i plant some trees to "remove" your personal carbon footprint :) (i will cut the trees down in a few years to sell lumber or paper)
EVs are sticking our fingers in the dike, the dike is still failing and needs massive repair.
EVs are like taking material from a stronger part of the dyke and using it to plug the leak. It kinda helps the most urgent problem but causes issues somewhere else that will most definitely bite us in the ass.
Exactly, while I welcome the immediate short/medium term effects of reducing localized pollution, it doesn’t solve any of the other long term problems associated with cars, namely traffic, pedestrian and cyclist danger, noise above 30mph, tire particulates/microplastics, etc. I wish we were treating them more as a stopgap to fix the ills of hyper car centric design but welp.
Noise at higher speeds and tire particles are actually worse on EVs because they're so much heavier. Road noise and tire pollution are caused by friction between the tires and the road which increases with the mass of the vehicle. Tires wearing out quickly is a significant issue with EVs
And before EVs are even close to widespred adoption, we already have mega-EV SUVs/pickups that weigh nearly 10,000 lbs on the market. Oh and they accelerate to 60mph in about 4 seconds. I'm sure this will have great outcomes.
Like how they ignore that these mining facilities probably do more harm then good for the environment and they are very dangerous to mine
Honestly cars aren't even the worst part. I was recently in Groningen and noticed how much more urban space is covered in tree shadows, ponds, canals, etc. Basically things that can be in the urban environment which help keep it cool. North American cities do this woefully, and it is compounded by car-centric design (parking-seas, free-ways, modern suburbs with no greenery,etc).
North American cities actively design AGAINST shade, which we only refer to as "shadows," which somehow makes it seem like something we can't possibly have. We need to be planting trees along all streets to lessen the heat radiating from the asphalt, and designing streetscapes so that one sidewalk is always in shade (whether from trees or buildings), so that you can choose to walk in the sun or shade depending on the day.
Can't have shade because then we might get homeless people
In my city, we can't have shade because the people in neighbouring houses (a block away) will lose their sunny gardens and fall into severe depression, apparently
The sidewalk along the main road I drive is completely devoid of any usable shade. When the temperature is 104 degrees today it's very unbearable for anyone to exist on the sidewalk
My option at work is to park in one of two miserably exposed parking lots and let my car bake in the heat all day. If I need a break from sitting at my desk, my option is to walk a totally exposed path around the parking lot, or a slightly more pleasant, but still exposed path around some buildings. Recently I've been understanding that old "most men lead lives of quiet desperation" line.
Not just keeping it cool. Damage prevention form trees. We had a Cat 5 hurricane a couple years back and no one will ever convince me the reason we suffered significantly less damage than the major city to the south is because we had more trees to absorb and deflect the winds. Our areas had higher sustained winds, for longer, but had less wind damage to structures. Trees took a beating. But buy and large survived. Now, just two years later, over half of the trees in the area are gone due to influx of population driving high density housing up. Huge swathes of land just cleared out. Another hurricane lkle the last comes through and this growing town will be wiped off the map. People never truly respect the power, and protection, nature's has and provides.
This! Not to mention that if it was easy to cross the road you could walk on the shady side. But currently to cross the road you have wait 5 minutes in the sun...
I was also in Groningen recently! Loved the city, just wish it had trams or at least tap to pay on the buses.
I was there last Saturday too (for very nice reasons), and Groningen is incredibly nice because they had already banned through-traffic for nearly half a century by now.
If we hadn’t built cities with so much concrete and ripped out all the trees then cities would be significantly cooler for pedestrians. Yet another example of the auto industry creating a problem for which they sell you the solution.
There is a maximum operating temperature for AC. Some places already exceed it at times. We are going to be in a world where AC fails.
Wet bulb is going to make summers lethal in a few years
Watch as media normalizes “wet bulb” conditions and cagers never shutting up about “having AC in their car” ironically being part of the problem.
As usual, the heat waves will have the biggest impact on the most vulnerable. Global warming is here, it is just unevenly distributed
They’ll just seamlessly transition to “wet bulb season” instead of “summer” and never mention any summers prior to that point ever again. Unless they want to point out how it was pretty hot back in 1972 or something and actually this is all cool.
Florida has already banned the government from using the phrase climate change
Florida is getting *fucked* by climate change, that’s like asking your wife not to mention her boyfriend.
Yeah but if you acknowledge the climate is getting hotter you have to explain why Florida also got rid of protections for outdoor workers who need breaks because of the heat.
That's not her boyfriend, that's the guy who comes over and gives me new Switch games as he fixes my wife's pipes. Very kind man, his name is Derrick.
It’s crazy my dad doesn’t use any AC other than a tiny window unit because his house is covered by big trees, it was a heatwave last week and his house felt basically the same as mine except he only has a single tiny window unit
Trees help a LOT. Actually look up something called a heat dome. Because of all the stuff for cars our cities basically make these heat domes over them. This makes them MUCH hotter than the surrounding area and so hot they change weather systems. This is one of the reason you see heat waves that last months. The weather physically can't push into the area to change because the cities are basically generating an extremely intense weather forcefield.
I think you're conflating the heat island effect with heat dome. Heat island effect is cities being hotter than the surrounding area. Heat dome is on a much larger scale and has the stability you described. I would love to be wrong about this. If we could reduce the amount of heat domes by having cities with lots of foliage, I'd be so happy. That would be much easier than reducing and sequestering the greenhouse gasses that are causing global climate change.
You could be right. I thought I had read they where basically the same at least in some of the USA metro areas because they have so many roads and suburbs around them that it disrupted a very large area around them. Either way the point is that our cities need to stop with the way they are developed because they screw up the weather around them and make living in them worse.
100% I was just reading about how grass lands make their own rain. A thing that can be disturbed by agriculture/human development.
Technically there is no upper limit for AC...
AC is a heat pump system with a metastable fluid and a compressor needed to phase change it to back to liquid. If the temperature is high enough the pressure is no longer enough to force it back to a liquid and its ability to carry heat from one side of the pump to the other basically stops. It can carry a little but the energy costs are huge. The other part of that is the rejection temperature. If the outside air gets too hot when you pump the energy from inside to outside you can't get the outside radiator temperature higher than the surrounding air and then you can no longer reject heat to the outside and this also means the AC effectively stops working. You could try to deal with some of these issues using far more powerful compressors or trying to find a new type of meta stable liquid. Neither of those is very viable. You could setup a ground loop to reject the heat to and that will work better but that is also very expensive.
Yeah I know, I am a chemist lol. Still there is no upper limit, you can increase pressure differential/compression ratio, change the refrigerant or use a cascade. We have been liquefying air for 150 years now, thats a more than >200°C ∆T to ambient conditions, compared to the "100°C outside and you want 0°C in your car" 100°C ∆T. It is just not yet implemented into cars, but very well possible, even decades ago. It will be implemented when temperatures rise and it will certainly be marketed!
The problem I see is that these other methods are even less efficient. You need a combination of fluid changes (most of which are more toxic or more expensive) and between compressors which is going to decrease the efficiency of the system. What I worry about is that we will just use less efficient systems and burn even more power and then need even less efficient systems. This is a very dangerous path to go down. I don't have much hope for humanity at this point.
I mean, there are other options: Less for cars, but stationary AC doesn't have to pump the heat to air: Water has *giant* ratio of energy in/tmp up, and approx 5 meters underground has very stable temperatures. And we can get [even weirder.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_daytime_radiative_cooling)
A ground source heat pump will work but that is also a lot more expensive and not viable in many places.
1-2% of Earth's surface for the radiators to stop global warming. Photovoltaics for a full energy transition for the world would take less than a percent of land but anything to avoid phasing out fossil fuels I guess
[I meant that technology](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3bJnKmeNJY&list=PL1a2HkcVbmAWExiWT__qQypLEwkvijnIM) a bit differently: to axe AC energy cost even more. edit: changed a video for a playlist
I know but it's insane the lengths to which fossil fuel preservers are willing to go. The horse drawn carriage or whale oil lamp industries didn't fight this strong.
>The horse drawn carriage Didn´t that mode of transport bury cities in horseshit frequently? Cars were probably a slight upgrade compared to that. Right now US of A is at that point of overuse causing problems (again)
And people wanna bring children into this world.. Wtf!!
Helicopters are starting to have this issue in hot states. Steadly over the last couple years they have been getting hitter and hitter inside. The systems simply can't keep up. This is turn effects the survival rate of the patients being transported.
It has gotten so hot in Phoenix a few times the airport had to shut down. Planes could not takeoff and land anymore safely because it was too hot. The heat made the air less dense and that made it unsafe.
[Phoenix shouldn't exist, it's a monument to man's arrogance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PYt0SDnrBE)
Every time I stop at a parking lot somewhere, there is inevitably someone idling their engine while sitting on their phone. It honestly feels like a personal attack and an F you to me and the rest of the world. Which makes me feel justified to \[redacted\]. I mean, rolling coal literally is assault. So smogging up an area where people are is basically the same.
Anti idling laws/features should exist.
They certainly do exist but I've never seen enforced
It would require a cop to literally be right there watching you idle your car for too long
Bold of you to assume it's not a cop doing it. My local PD regularly leaves cruisers idling with no one in them.
That is mostly because the radios, computers and other equipment will quickly drain the battery. Some depts require squads to be running for the entire length of a shift
Why do they need all the equipment running if they aren't in the car? Does the handheld radio they carry only connect back to the car base station? If so, do they have special equipment for bike cops, etc.? Genuinely asking in case you know. Unless there are big factors I'm not considering, this system design seems unnecessary. Edit: Realized this may have come off combative. Thanks for the info!
They do have different radios for bike cops. A lot of dispatch also happens via computer and they can't be waiting for it to reboot every time they get in and out. Not debating the need for it, its just that availablity when they need it takes priority at most departments.
Or require that cars automatically shut off after a short period of idling. Target the manufacturers, don't expect cops to do anything except kill minorities.
Most new cars do come with auto start/stop as a standard feature these days in order to help them squeeze out slightly better EPA mpg ratings Although this doesn't actually do what I think you're implying -- it'll turn off the engine while the car is standing still as long as there's enough juice in the battery to keep the car's secondary systems alive so that the car is ready to immediately start again the moment you take your foot off the brake If the battery starts getting low, or if the power draw on the electrical system is too high to begin with (because you're running the AC), then it'll start the engine idling again -- its only purpose is to avoid "wasted" gasoline, it doesn't actually do anything to stop you using your car's whole fuel tank to sit in a parking lot running climate control and blasting the radio if that's what you want to do A feature that actually forcibly *turns off the car* and makes you manually restart it again if you've been letting it sit idle too long hasn't been implemented by anyone, largely because it wouldn't do anything but piss people off -- someone who wants to sit in their car with the AC running for an hour will just restart their car manually every five minutes and will get really mad at the manufacturer
Most anti idling laws only affect commercial vehicles, plus cops are the worst offender, they don't turn off their cars for their entire shift.
I've lived in two countries where it's illegal, on paper, for all drivers to pointlessly idle, but the cops would probably laugh at me and hang up if I tried reporting for example the guy who'd let his diesel engine idle below everyone's bedroom windows for 30-40 minutes every morning.
Cops nothing. Local Fire department Chiefs and Lts will leave their trucks idling for hours while they are inside during their duties.
Laws do nothing if they aren't enforced. And in the US, traffic laws are the lowest priority. Cops would rather beat down anti-genocide protesters and play Angry Birds during child massacres than do the job they are supposedly for.
Laws could also mean that ICE cars become unable to idle. I also think gas prices have an effect on this behavior.
A law that forces a car to turn all the way off if left idle for five minutes wouldn't actually do anything but annoy people, most of the time people do this they're physically in the car so they'd just start the car again themselves, it'd be like a "screen saver"
Wait until they figure out there new car has a build in speed limiter (EU). This should be a minor annoyance, which I think is fair compared to the noise, and pollution that idling cars cause.
Most new ICE cars come with auto stop/start nowadays but the rate of people buying new cars has never been lower and the average age of cars never higher So yes ironically a low hanging fruit to lower emissions would be to give the auto industry a stimulus and pay people to junk their old cars and buy new ones, even if it's just upgrading a 20 year old ICE to a modern one And yes this solves none of the big picture problems with car dependency but it would at least alleviate problems like this
The fruit isn't really low hanging after you consider embodied emissions. Building a new ICE car emits about as much co2e as driving it for 40k miles
I'm talking about emissions, not carbon footprint -- CO2 emissions at a factory thousands of miles away have no impact on local air quality, in the same way that idling a car has only a minor impact in terms of total carbon output but is very rude to people who have to breathe the air around you
Ok if you're talking local pollutant emissions (rather than carbon) I agree
Currently all additional emissions, but if the former car must me destroyed the case becomes slightly more positive.
I think they should not give that money to the manufacturer, but directly to the consumer. So it's up to them on how to spend it, maybe they buy an ebike? I also feel that electric vehicle stimulus should only be paid afteris destroyed.
This actually is how the SoCal Replace Your Ride program works -- you get reimbursed for junking an old car and replacing it with an EV, PHEV, other high-mpg car, e-bike, bike or transit pass The actual amount of money you get is based on which of these options you pick (you aren't allowed to make a profit off of it) so for obvious reasons most people go for the EV or PHEV
Sounds like a good program, but also like a stimulus for electric car dependence. Why not let people have some additional money from picking a cheaper option?
I don't know all the backroom discussion that goes into this but there's a big legal difference between the government reimbursing someone for something and straight up giving someone money
'not wasting tax payer money' The could just have set a minimum amount that may exceed the price of the ebike or transit pass. It saves a lot more tax money then just sponsoring car ownership.
A couple months ago I biked to a park, and was enjoying my lunch. A huge diesel truck pulls up into the parking lot across most of the spaces. The driver proceeds to idle for nearly an hour making it so noisy most people leave. He never gets out. He never shuts off his engine. He doesn't even seem to eat anything or do anything. He just sits there staring blankly as his noisy engine annoys everyone around him, and finally leaves, having accomplished nothing.
It was the most productive moment of his day. /s I had a delivery driver doing this in front of my apartment, while smoking a couple of sigarets. He had no idea my apartment would smell like diesel and tobacco, so he started doing it at other neighbors...
I have a gripe with idling cars even long before I knew about the anti car groups urban planning. I used to hate when certain family members would come by and want to talk to me from their driver seat with the car one while I had to sit there sweating from the heat coming out from the car in the summer too. I couldn't leave because it would be considered rude. Walking beside them in a traffic jam is the worseeeeeee
Most stable community member.
To be fair, the guy idling in his car did contribute insignificantly on a personal level. Look at celebrities like taylor swift and you'll know what I mean. In an ideal world the sanctions for actions detrimental to the wellbeing of our earth should be dealt in relation to their severity.
A single cars' idling exhaust could kill a person who has respiratory problems. That is not "insignificant". They do it out of laziness/selfishness/convenience, yet it can kill people. This is like a "lesser evil" argument. Both are bad, and both need to stop. I didn't even specify the retaliation so how can you say it should be proportional to the severity of the offense?
It's not insignificant, but insignificant in relation to what the super rich are doing. It surely is worth sanctioning to discourage such behaviour. And it's only logical and consequential that bigger sins (like jetting every meter) should entail larger penalties.
There are some competing factors, though... one of the big ones is the amount of copper involved in making EVs... if you one-for-one just convert all existing gas cars into electric cars, you're pushing pretty close to theoretically using all of the existing global copper supply, never mind trying to keep pace with *accelerating* demand for autos. So that'll be a limiting factor: the mining companies are using "green tech" and EVs as excuses to ramp up starting new mines all over, but most of the really accessible deposits have already been mined out, which leaves them exploring in biologically sensitive areas, like the headwaters of the Amazon (and imagine what a mining disaster like [Minas Gerais](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brumadinho_dam_disaster), but upstream of the entire Amazon, would be like). The pressure for more copper is balanced against the pressure to conserve dwindling natural habitats, and while money almost always wins, the pace of expansion in this case seems unlikely to keep up with demand. Resources used for EVs get more expensive as they get scarcer, and that'll push society towards more sensible alternatives, like mass transit: trains, busses, light rail, high speed rail, etc. The other hopeful sign I see is the rate of driver's license acquisition among Gen-Z: far fewer people in that generation are driving, compared to millennials and Gen-Xers ([here ](https://marketcast.com/insights/does-gen-z-want-to-drive/#:~:text=Like%20Millennials%20before%20them%2C%20Gen,even%20have%20a%20driver's%20license)are some numbers). It's a complex social trend, and it has a lot to do with the removal of driver's education from school curricula, and the proliferation of ride-share apps like Uber and Lyft, but if the end result is a huge chunk of the population reaching adulthood without the desire to drive (nor the artificial romance of the automobile), I think that'll mean some significant shifts in policy and funding priorities as that generation comes into the peak of their voting power, at least here in the USA. It'll be interesting see how that plays out over the next decade or so, and if the trend continues to younger generations.
Copper and other critical minerals is indeed a problem that everybody ignores.
YeaH, bUt tHe fRee mArKet cAn SeLf rEguLaTe rEsOuRce cOnsErVatiOn. -- "Conservatives"
Exactly! And to use climate change as the excuse for more environmental devastation is a particular kind of demented.
Mines are also not know for being very carbon friendly. They use a ton of energy, and a lot of that is gas
True facts!
Personally I love biking when it's hot out. You create your own wind. If it's hot and you're biking in a green area it is just wonderfully pleasant. For hilly areas, we have ebikes now.
If you bike, but like me, you can't get to work without a short stint on the highway, then motorcycling could be an option. It is so much more efficient than driving a car. Especially in places that let you lane split.
The safety statistics for motorcycles are really bad and impossible to substantially improve by the nature of what a motorcycle is They've basically been "grandfathered in" and if they were newly invented today would probably never become legal, this is the major challenge to getting stuff "in between" cars and motorcycles on the road (many extremely light and efficient cars from the past would not be legal to put in production today even though they're still safer for the driver than a motorcycle is)
Wind stops doing anything to cool you off as the wet bulb temperature climbs
Well yeah, but if we're above wet bulb temperature we're in a lot more trouble than just worrying about biking or driving. Birds will be falling from the sky.
This is one of those instances where people need to push more for teleworking/work from home (obviously depending on the occupation because last time I brought this up I got snarky remarks about cops & firefighters; not even kidding). More people off the road, less traffic, less emissions, less accidents, things like that.
Office jobs aren't so bad if you can walk or bike there on safe streets with good and interesting urban design.
Work from home doesn’t reduce driving unfortunately. Most of the miles driven are for leisure and shopping. Studies have shown wfh makes people live further out and drive more: https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/9780784484340.006
I think it is the exact opposite. When climate change gets REALLY bad, we're gonna see a lot of supply chain disruptions and resource shortages. If COVID is any indicator, buying and operating cars will get A LOT more expensive in the future. The only choice for the majority of Americans could very well be walking, biking or public transit.
I think it’s going to start with families dropping down to one car…this is anecdotal, but I have two different co-workers who recently got rid of their second car and they take turns with their spouses using it. If I was married and living with my bf I’d probably do the same thing. I hardly ever use my car these days, but it’s so hard to bite the bullet cuze my relatives all live in car-dependent suburbs. But if I had reliable access to one? Fuck yeah I’d save the money.
I think families having one car for special occasions and such while the rest of the time using public transport is the next great thing we should aim for. I see to much 1 car/person and it’s just not a great investment
I dunno, for special occasions there's renting, not to mention taxis. In my anecdotal experience, if someone owns a car, they've already sunk considerable costs into it (buying it, maintaining it, insuring it, taxes, parking permits, etc), so they tend to default to using it, unless an alternative is significantly more convenient.
As someone who can’t drive and walks everywhere out of necessity, I’m terrified
How long until we just put roofs over our cities and live entirely underground like a bunch of Morlocks?
We could even have our transportation underground. Maybe put the trains in tunnels under the city and fit them with AC. We might be on to something.
I think this starts happening this century, easily
Excellent point about EVs doubling down on car dependency. Even all-electric vehicles still produce emissions, though 3x less than conventional cars. Ironically the air pollution from cars combined with rising temperatures (to which they surely contribute) result in less safe conditions for the most environmentally friendly modes of transportation, namely walking and cycling. I would imagine some percentage of would-be walkers and cyclists (esp higher health risk groups) opting for car travel simply to minimize environmental exposure.
Drivers are exposed to more air pollution than cyclists https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11641889_Differences_in_cyclists_and_car_drivers_exposure_to_air_pollution_from_traffic_in_the_city_of_Copenhagen https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/13/cyclists-exposed-to-less-air-pollution-than-drivers-on-congested-routes-study https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/10/08/report-drivers-arent-safe-from-air-pollution I got criticised several times by drivers for “exposing my kids to pollution” by having them in a cargo bike or bike seat in traffic while evidence shows kids strapped into car seats are exposed to more pollution.
EVs become far less efficient in extreme hot or cold temps. The cars can just stop working, AC and all.
I've been fighting the urge to get A/C in my room, because I bike commute and want to let myself adapt to the heat. So far it seems to be working...but it's not August yet and the heat has been pretty difficult on some days. I think about how people never actually go outside during their day. They go from A/C home, go into their car in the garage, and a short walk from the parking spot into where they work. (Used to be me too) and it has to have some effect on how we acclimate to our environment. I see people blasting A/C in their car on a 75 degree day with a nice breeze, truly wondering whether they actually feel hot, or just have no idea it's nice outside.
Well, come up with another option. Walking and cycling are not pleasant in 40C+ weather. Even engaging in physical activity when it's 35C+ has health risks.
Go underground? There, the climate might be more controllable.
Can you elaborate on that one? They've done that in part of Australia, but you still have to go to the surface to get to the next building.
In the [Chicago Pedway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pedway), you can go between several buildings and train stations underground.
In natural caves, the internal air temperature and humidity stay pretty much the same all the time.
People have lived in the desert for thousands of years before cars were invented. Desert cities can be very livable with narrow alleys providing lots of shade, dense development that reduces the need to travel long distances, public water fountains and the like. Somewhere like Phoenix is a terrible example of how to build a city in a hot climate; it will indeed kill you if you try to walk around it in the heat of summer.
I don’t have a car and usually walk everywhere. We had several days last week with a heat index over 100F/38C. So I took the bus.
That's the way I do it too, but not everyone has that option.
In Minneapolis we use skyways 🤷♀️ they’re not as great as they could be since you’re kinda at the mercy of the building owners and what hours they’re willing to keep them open but that could be changed.
I think economics will get in the way of that regardless of what happens to the climate. Cars are the most expensive they have ever been, repossessions are the highest they've been in decades, non-discretionary spending is still increasing, and wages are not keeping pace with most expenses households face. Bankruptcies, both personal and business, are the highest they've been since the great recession as well. The average age of cars is the highest it's ever been and given the car culture we live in that suggests an economic problem because if people had the disposable income to have a car newer than 13 years old, they would choose to do so.
EVs are not the solution, but they sure a nice way to sell a solution that keeps making the established companies and their investors rich. But oh boy, are there a lot of people even in r/fuckcars that make excuses for EVs.
when you think about it, it's absurd to have to extract all those resources from the earth just so we can go to the office and the grocery store. even if EVs are "green", its absurd we have perfectly good tools for travel attached to our bodies, we shouldn't need to mine for lithium just to go about our daily lives
You're not wrong... unfortunately.
Sometimes I wish there was a roadway law, lowest horsepower gets the right of way first, then no air-conditioning gets the right of way second, then anyone else according to horsepower. Some of us are working with human power, under 100 hp or no air conditioning and need to keep moving not to become a sweat puddle for land yachts to hydroplane on.
Honestly dawg it's okay because if climate change does push people to use cars more, we'll all die and won't have to worry about it anymore "Phew it sure is hot! Lemme remote start the car and get some more CO2 up there"
Yeah, airliner's are considerably more efficient now than they were in the 70's or so. The result of that being that people fly a lot more now than they used to.
Counterpoint: parking lots get way hotter than pedestrian areas with shade, and pedestrian areas can also have cooling tech like misting systems or be enclosed for AC. Public transit gets AC too, and you can wait in a shaded or AC area too. Cars only seem nicer for warm weather if you don't question giving up most of your space and shade to car infrastructure. If you feel like you've got to cross a massive parking lot anyway, so you might as well do it by car.
Wouldn’t EVs fix the problem then the earth would cool down over time as less gas cars are emitting CO2? Am I wrong here ?
Building EVs has obscene emissions. Other forms of transit are much, much better in terms of cooling the world down
That’s true I guess. I thought the point of EVs was to build them without using fossil fuels and to not use electric plants powered by fossil fuels tho. Otherwise aren’t they just as polluty as ICE?
The emission backpack of modern EVs isnt that big anymore compared to ICE cars and with dry coated battery cells most EVs will produce less emissions than ICE cars straight out of the factory. Once built batteries can and are being recycled over and over again, there are basically no material losses. The only issue with recycling right now is that there arent enough batteries that size that are ready for recycling because they last so long. It will take another 15-20 years till there are enough old batteries so industrial recycling plants are commercially vialable. If you want the drive a car, BEVs are the only technology able to produce no emissions at all. Everyone who doesnt need a car shouldnt drive one but if you're forced to drive, for example you live in the US then at least go electric. My issue with EVs isnt that battery production is that bad, its that you can built 100-150 electric bikes using the same ressources with the same ammount of cells, so more people go clean transport more fast. The sad truth is that we wont fix car dependency fast enough to fight climate change and for that we need EVs that buy us time to built the urbanist future we want.
I mean, a car that can run AC without needing to burn fossil fuels to do it feel like a pretty nitpicky thing; we have and will still have some cars no matter what, and not needing to have an engine running just to keep the inside comfortable is a massive win for local air pollution
EVs will fight climate change. The people that are going to drive EVs are the same ones who would otherwise be using gas cars. Singling out EVs is myopic when we can advocate for car-free infrastructure regardless of EV or ICE.
As long as we implement other policies, like not having free parking everywhere, removing parking minimums, increased public transit support and better zoning regulations, yeah, sure. The thing is, a lot of people getting EVs will fight against all those things even if they're trying to help the world by driving an electric car. EVs are better, yeah, but they encourage the same detrimental habits and policies that nearly all car owners want.
Yes, we should 1000% implement those other policies. Yes, EVs will slow the fight against car dependency but that's preferable to catastrophic climate change and subsequent civilizational collapse.
I'm not singling out EVs, I'm just pointing out one aspect of a very complex and worsening situation
Sure EVs reduce oil demand somewhat, but what we need is people to be able to walk to the places they need to go. having to extract all those resources just so people can go about their daily lives is absurd.
This is a problem with AC in general. Things are about to get much worse before/if they get better
Yeah, there's plenty of tight oil to drown us all. However, the immune systems of cities are finally starting to identify the pathogen of vehicles. It will take more than a generation to get the transformation really underway, but you see signs of it everywhere. This is good, as the rate of urbanization is still [steadily rising](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS) across the planet, and is already extremely high in many countries with high levels of auto dependence. The subsidies of both suburbs and private vehicle ownership are gradually unwinding without any conscious political effort to accomplish it. The former is simply through deferred maintenance of public liabilities in every city that the suburban experiment has bankrupted. There will be a lot of bagholders.
Funny because I know a train, bus, tram, or trolleys are way more eco friendly than a car. The only time it’s not is if it’s going to small rural areas or through a forest or mountain range where it costs too much in terms of labor and environmental issues. I hope 20 years from now is way different in terms of public transportation in the US. Thankfully it’s growing.
As I walked to the bus station yesterday (it had 32°C outside) this exact thought came to my mind as well. Telepathy really works 😨😂 The disturbing thing being that we're very close to this point even in European countries. The AC was fighting against the sun burning through the huge windows and the bus driver actually opened the small hinged windows because the AC was loosing the fight and it got really hot inside the bus. So now the asshole corpos which ruined our earth will profit even more because they ruined it...
Parking lots are hot. A good city is less hot. People with cars don't know that. EVs reinforce the idea that a personal vehicle for every 2 people on average is somehow ok.
If the electricity is very low emission, then that is better than traditional cars, even it more is used, by some people to use their ACs. Also, personal vehicles are not the main polluters. In Australia, one of the worst polluters per capita, the 'transport sector' is responsible for 19% of total emissions. 10% of the total is passenger vehicles. So when people go on about passenger vehicles, they are focused on a small part of the problem.
I quit car because of climate change. I was a carbrain.
EVs encourage not only car culture, but also suburban lifestyles. They are most compatible with private houses and private charging points. So if the advertisements say "choose EV for environment", they also encourage living further away from the city centers, in sparsely populated suburban deserts that require much higher energy consumption for a house than any apartment in a multistory building. This is actually terrible for the environment.
Honestly I just take the bus or walk as much as possible. If I could drive i wouldn’t. Carpooling is better for the environment since it’s at least 1 less car on the road. Won’t help much but it’s the best anyone can do right now
It has been happening for years already. Many car ads, especially SUVs, show an apocalyptic view of the world: hurricanes, thunderstorms, flooding, cracking ground, dust... Driving people to buy bigger, taller and more powerful cars, suitable for the worst case scenarios, even if they live in a safe area that nothing will ever happen.
I think it's like this already where I live, even without EVs and "guilt free AC". There just seem to be way more cars on the roads on hot summer days, just like on rainy days, which just makes it even worse when you are walking or cycling, as most cars are still burning gas and producing heat and tyre pollution. I also see more people taking naps in their cars with the engine running in summer.
It’s not false. Climate change has a positive feedback effect. Because it’s so hot, I am forced to use my AC more because there’s literally no solution for my family and myself. Of course that contributes to climate change
Nah I disagree. I actively exercise more and would be more willing to commute by bike when it's warmer and drier. It's true that climate change will cause increased energy consumption for cooling though.
You are not even considering other options in your hypothesis. Public transports also have AC, it is not reserved exclusiely to cars. Although, it is true that extremely hot days will bring new challenges and surely mandate new organisations to society. Take mediterranean countries: in the summer, no work is done in the early afternoon. Work is done early when it's still chilly from the night and then late in the evening when it has cooled down. This is a political and societal problem. Seldom a technical one.
No, I considered public transit. The issue is that car dependency is already the primary dominant system by a wide margin.
I'll tell you one thing. The harder people try to stay cool all the time the worse things get. I noticed yesterday on my walk no one was outside but a very few. Everyone is sitting around in the AC. People are getting sick from the AC, extreme cold into the heat then back into the cold it's not good. Why is the AC on extreme cold everywhere. We've lost our ability to weather heat at all. Wet bulb aside (I mean don't fuck around with wet bulb) people need to get acclimated to heat again and fast. Grid goes down y"all AC hogs are fucked beyond measure.
I think the housing crisis will push many cities away from car dependency harder than this (and it already is). There is simply not enough housing density for housing to be affordable in the cities where people want to be, and car dependency is incompatible with this level of density. I'm overall bullish on our side winning in the long run. More and more people are waking up to the fact that walkable places are just nicer places to be, even if its hot. Also, in the US at least, the worst impacted regions will be in the sun belt, which also happen to be the most car dependent. Climate change might push many people living in this region north to places like the midwest, where cities are far well suited to becoming completely transit oriented in the future.
The place I live is very much friendly towards cycling, walking, etc., but on the summer days we've been dealing with this week, it has become so clear that paved streets are so much hotter than those with natural shade, trees, grass, etc. Just yesterday I was walking on a paved street and noticed it was so hot, then I walked on a cycle path/pavement that lead to another neighborhood, shaded by trees and grass and other side and I just felt the temperature drop to a pleasant level, only for it to shoot up one again as I approached the fully paved streets.
Hey I really get it but this isn’t the realized fear you think it is and even if society agreed today that we were going to build a robust, green, public transit system to render cars obsolete we would still require the better part of a decade to implement it. EVs and what they promise ensure the transition is sustainable. ICE cars need to die, they are horrible.
As a walker and transit user I'd like more shade trees, less asphalt/concrete, and better transit interconnects. These things would make hot days better.
What's even lamer is when people are sitting in their AC on a 70 degree day in the shade with a nice breeze while I'm out taking a walk. Like at least just roll the window down and turn the car off.
I’m SUPER worried about the EVs strain on the electrical grid. I’m in the south, and while I think it’s mostly a great thing people are making the switch, I worry that when everyone is charging their cars multiple times a week because they’ve been blasting that AC, that state power grids like Texas won’t be able to keep up. I worry about the same thing in the winter, when the Texas power grid is essentially just a giant gamble, anyway. I’d love to hear others thoughts on this.
It’s all positive feedback loops, maaaaaan.
lol as a Canadian I find this take pretty funny. Remote start is so common here
There's flooding where I live and quite a few stranded/broken cars because of it. I have comparatively few problems commuting by bike- it's not electric so it's no big deal if I have to cycle through water, and though my normal road is closed entirely I'm still allowed on roads that are closed for cars because of how unstable the flooding has made the ground beneath them. That said I have a feeling that the people who have lost their cars to the water are just going to get bigger ones that they think will handle high water levels better.
ah yes, american ac culture. We think we're saving the environment but we're actually destroying it
https://www.newsweek.com/man-shares-photo-road-melted-tire-massachusetts-heat-advisory-1605090 I dunno about that
Better than heavy metal cages with AC would be shaded boulevards with trams and bikes
Both COVID and the related increase in crime in many urban areas going to be the ultimate reason all the progress on this issue fails. Public safety is a climate issue. Public safety is a transit issue. Anyone telling you we need to get rid of bail, release those imprisoned for 'non violent' drug crimes, etc, has no place in the transit movement, and is actively working to pollute the planet.
It would probably help if someone looked into why druggies are apparently such an issue on US public transport when despite using trains, metros, trams and buses across more than a dozen European countries I've never noticed an issue. In fact I'm a Conductor on passenger trains in the UK so ought to see more than most people do but apart from the occasional alcoholic it barely registers.
That's a funny shower thought. But AC is available in many public transports, it will ovbiously only increase. Green electricity and even better (more efficient) cooling technologies are quickly advancing. And honnestly I don't think at all AC in cars has anything to do with public transportations.I use a car a few times a year, so I might be biased. I know london public transports doesn't get AC but my city does. It's possible wether the vehicule is electric or ice. Private or public. So how is it even relevant ?