this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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I mean, that's not true at all..... America would just have to build actual public transportation. We just attach a feeling of personal freedom to cars that's so prevalent that Americans cannot fathom the idea of expanding public transportation.
And yes, of course public transportation isn't going to reach everyone in rural America. However, if a significant portion of the urban/suburban population switched to electric rail, it would curb climate change faster than everyone slowly replacing their personal vehicles.
I'm just being realistic. I actually hate cars but I'm under no illusion they'll go away any time soon. We have to make progress in many forms and car reduction is one of them
Crawl -> Walk -> Run.
We're in the crawl phase. Let's leverage less-harmful technology to reduce our impact on the environment while simultaneously investing in ideal solutions like public transportion and walkable/bikeable cities. It will be a slow transition and we need to embrace every step in the process.
Which is what I'm saying.
Yes, I was agreeing with you. That was the point of my reply.
I honestly don't know which idea is honestly more "realistic". I think either halting climate change in time is probably a long shot, but which is actually feasible......
The largest problem with electric cars is that we more than likely aren't going to be able to force people to stop driving with gas. Which means we will still be reliant on a fossil fuel industry, and when there is demand, there will be supply. Unless we quickly curb demand to a significant degree, fossil fuel companies will do anything they can to keep those cars on the road.
The second largest problem with EVs is that they have a much larger production carbon footprint than traditional vehicles. This gap in the carbon footprint is closed within a year or two of driving, which normally would be fine..... but with the time constraints of climate change, that initial production carbon is a pretty big hurdle.
And I agree that we have to make progress in several forms, but some of those forms are just going to be a fossil fuel company's attempt to preserve their profit model disguised with a green sashe.
This is questionably accurate.
It's not just a matter of building the rail, it's also redesigning the urban sprawl. That's a LOT of new construction of buildings needed, too. That comes with new utilities, etc. And cement is a huge carbon source.
There is a time scale over which that's more carbon efficient than replacing all personal vehicles and their replacement lifecycles, but it's very unclear if that's actually faster with regards to climate change timelines.