EVs are made with metals smelted with ~2 tonnes of coal, making about 4 tonnes of CO2. The coal is transported with diesel derived from oil. Which is extracted with steel. Which is made with coal.

EVs use fewer resources over their lifetime than infernal-combustion. So that’s good, assuming all the oil products they rely upon throughout their lifetime (e.g. bitumen) continue to flow.

But we’re probably past peak diesel. Perhaps we can examine our predicament more fully?

#climateDiary #iran

…If the Strait of Hormuz opens up again we are still in deep deep shit.

EVs will not save us
#climateDiary #iran

https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/116029590127301099

…The thing that will make a great difference is radically reducing demand. Which is at odds with us having constructed an economy that’s structurally addicted to growth.

But we *can* do things differently. We could start now. #degrowth

If we don’t, thermodynamics will deconstruct our economy anyway. It does not give a shit.

But we should
https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/113850195365641566

…Yesterday I listened to the BBC’s Simon Jack give Blackrock CEO, Larry Fink, an effectively unchallenged platform for half an hour. Fink’s vision is deranged. Among other things he wants pension funds to bet LARGE on AI. It is pure accelerationism off a Seneca cliff.

We *can* listen instead to people prepared to think carefully and differently
#degrowth

https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/113854280740787163

…Perhaps we can start to pay attention to where the billions of miles driven have actually transported us?

Miles driven on the back of 240+ GT of CO2 emitted by China over 35 years, to enable it to make 1 biilion tonnes of steel per year, which our economy guzzles because it regards it as ‘cheap’ when it is in fact unimaginably expensive

https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/114233968625224293

@urlyman

Degrowth is an anathema to anyone with a vested interest in maintaining debt-based economic systems.

@urlyman it irks me when people claim EVs are green. Getting rid of a slightly used ICE powered car for an EV is far from green. Buying an EV is not green. EVs use rarer metals and toxins to process them. My 20 year old diesel to do less than 1000 miles per annum is far less polluting.
@EF it’s because our sense of what is ‘sustainable’ is the thinnest of epistemological veneers on a literal inferno of industrialism powering designed obsolescence
@urlyman GDP and being like the Joneses are bonkers. The misinformation floating around is unbelievable but the masses do any wave their green virtue flags around.