hmmm ... Rowan Atkinson makes several valid points here, but others that make no sense to me, such as "the environmental problem with a petrol engine is the petrol, not the engine ..." What?! (fyi, "Mr Bean" Atkinson holds bachelors and masters degrees in Electrical Engineering).
"I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped - Rowan Atkinson (Guardian)
#CO2 #ElectricVehicles #EV #Climate #ClimateCrisis #GHG #Lithium #Batteries #Battery #Klima #Klimakrise
@ariadne Hmm, his article starts with a valid description of the issue but ends in the wrong conclusion it seems.
The lie of the "New Green Growth" includes telling people that they don't need to change anything in their mobility behavior as the industry will switch from engines powered by petrol to engines running on electricity. Naturally, anyone can tell that this is utter nonsense since an electric car needs resources just as a petrol-based car (some studies even say that the CO² usage in building petrol-based cars is much lower than E-cars). He further explains that the drivers' wasteful usage of cars in general also causes a problem since most people switch car relatively frequently (he calls it “fast fashion” sales).
He's right about this.
But he then suggests to use the already existing cars by going E-Fuel (thus preserving resources otherwise used for building E-Cars), like Porsche is trying to enact in Germany through the FDP. That of course is also utter nonsense since E-Fuels are too wasteful and inefficient. But he's falling for the sales pitch of rich automobile manufacturers like Porsche since their clients don't care much if their fuel costs 2, 5, 10, or 20 $ per liter.
As such, he makes a very capitalistic, simple error in his thought process. He still believes that some universal right for everyone to own a car should be upheld.
Or in other words, mobility change shouldn't be about switching the fuel and thus "what comes out of the exhaust pipe", but to switch from private cars for transportation to communal transportation + non-car transportation like bikes, walking, etc. where feasible, aka have much less cars.
Seeing how the national governments in most countries are in the pockets of car producers (also the reason for the massive resistance and delays on exhaust emission regulations etc.), the best option here is to push locally for it as it already happens in many cities like Paris, Barcelona, Copenhagen, etc. Kind of like a grassroot movement.
Approach your local politicians about working on lowering the traffic in the city/town, vote for parties supporting that, organize yourself in groups and protest, and so on. If you can't actively do it yourself because of job/family, see if you can support local groups/people sharing that thought.
The car industry won't be able to cover all sides with bribes, so we just need to create many precedent cases of cities with little to no car traffic, and other cities/towns will follow, if it leads to a better living quality in urban areas.
Maybe, but just because some nutcases still insist on the Earth being flat, it doesn't change the fact of it being a globe.
With rising temperatures, we won't be able to have all these tin cans stand around, much less drive around, in cities that got much worse ventilation anyway. If masses of people start dying of smog, no one will care about the chimera of free markets which never existed in the first place. 🤷♂️
Ariadne
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