We look at carbon emissions of electric, hybrid, and combustion engine vehicles through an analysis of their life cycle emissions.

  • BrerChicken
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    31 year ago

    The problem is that you can’t simply add bicycles and buses in most places. We fucked up big time when we embraced the car and started living the spread out life. Our cities and rural communities worried literally have to be completely redesigned for that. When I lived in Miami (where I’m from), I rode a bike everywhere. Even though it’s very spread out, it’s flat and relatively easy to ride around in. Even the rain isn’t an issue because while it rains almost every day in the rainy season, you mostly know when it’s going to happen. My university was 8 miles from home and that wasn’t too bad of a ride. And if something was really far I could ride my bike to whatever bus was going a long way. I couldn’t see a lot of people living like that, but it was certainly possible.

    But now I live in a rural community in New England. I simply can’t ride my bike to school (where I work) everyday. And a bus doesn’t make sense because we’re all coming from different, spread out places and going to different, spread out places.

    Changing how we generate electricity is orders of magnitude easier than trying to convince 400 million people to change how and where they live. It’s as simple as that.

    • pterodactyl
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      21 year ago

      It’s not enough. Cutting transport emissions by two thirds is simply not enough. We can change planning now to make it hurt slightly less when we have to get rid of cars or we can continue the current path and leave a load of people stranded when the rug gets pulled, which do you think sounds better?

      • Invalid
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        21 year ago

        So it’s what then? Genocide? A new trail of tears where people are forced to leave their rural homes and move into massive cities that don’t currently exist?

        • pterodactyl
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          11 year ago

          Yes, those are the two sole options, cars and genocide. Fucking idiot. Have you heard of a bus?

          • Invalid
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            11 year ago

            3.4 billion people live in rural areas around the world. Areas where public transportation is not viable. I’m asking what you would do with them once you take away their only travel option.

            • pterodactyl
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              1 year ago

              I assume they moved there after the first model t rolled off the production line. Over 80% of the world don’t have a car, there is significant overlap with rural people in that.

              As I have already said, improve infrastructure, improve public transport, get off your lazy arse and walk more then 5 seconds from your front door.

              You don’t say you’re American but it’s so obvious you are, being incapable of functioning without a car isn’t normal it’s kind of pathetic

      • BrerChicken
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        11 year ago

        The 2/3rds was how much of the EV emissions would be cut by generating the electricity used to charge from renewables. The emissions cut by switching from a combustion engine to an EV is higher: from 47 tons of CO2 down to 13 tons, which is almost 3/4 (72%). And 9 of those tons come from manufacturing the vehicle itself, not the batteries. I’m sure at least SOME of that manufacturing emission had to do with how fossil-fuel energy generation in the manufacturing process so you could save even more.

        That in itself would not fix the problem, but it would slow it down and give us more time to keep working on solutions. Buses are not the solution.___