Sadly, your last line is correct. I would love to get rid of cars. Bikes are so much more pleasant, and so is walking, especially if there are no cars. Yet we are locked in to a system that is car dependent, fully dedicated to the ideal of continuous growth, which is an economic and environmental disaster already happening. The evidence is clear. We are a ship, heading straight for a rock, while the captain and crew are looking backwards extolling the power of the propeller. Most of the passengers are staring back as well, while a few are looking ahead and screaming in a sound proof room. Ford, Trump, Orban, Putin, Netanyahu, Modi and a whole troop of other world leaders are not leading from wisdom, the are simply doubling down on the mistakes of the 1920's that lead into WWII. This time the crash will be far worse. Can we throw things into reverse? Not without a massive shift of the rudder toward reduction and alternative energy, with the emphasis on the former. China is doing the latter without reduction. 160 gigawatts of new solar in the last quarter is very impressive, but ignores the fact that the streets are crowded, albeit with an increase in the percentage of electric cars. I don't have hope that the politics will change without a collapse. That collapse is coming is clear to anyone brave enough to look ahead. Where is the politician brave enough to tell us that we need to consume less?
“Yet we are locked in to a system that is car dependent…”
What’s worse is that, even if we wanted to, we couldn’t reverse this, at least not anytime soon. Jason Slaughter pointed out that making our cities like Dutch cities is impossible because everything is so far away that people would literally starve. The Dutch stopped themselves before really getting started. We’ve been sprawling for literal decades and would have decades of damage to undo. I recently did a rough calculation based on American car adoption and Dutch bike adoption of how long it will take before we start looking like Dutch cities and came up with…160 years. That’s not a conservative estimate. A conservative estimate would be 240 years because it accounts for setbacks, backlash and political blowback. This is why I’m looking to move to Nederland.
“We are a ship, heading straight for a rock, while the captain and crew are looking backwards extolling the power of the propeller.”
More like we’re the titanic heading for the iceberg. And the only solution the captain and crew want to offer is rearranging the deck chairs. And the passengers (especially the first class passengers) cheer over their “genius.” I recommend looking into the two rules of neoliberalism: 1) cause markets, 2) go die. Of course, just as the first class passengers and officers got the lifeboats, the exceptions are: 1) these rules do not apply to the rule makers (crew), 2) these rules do not apply to the beneficiaries of markets (wealth class, the first class passengers).
I cannot say I disagree with you, but your estimate of 160 years likely means we will die before the change happens. Empires always collapse and usually it is environmental destruction. We are not exceptions. Recovery time will likely be measured in millions of years in our case, since we are talking a global collapse.
China may have added 160 GW of solar capacity but their carbon emissions continue to go up, up, up. In other words, their energy demands exceed the capacity to even flatline emissions, much less reduce them. This is essentially the same reality elsewhere around the globe.
I could not agree more with your point about the responsibility for electing politicians who favour cars over the climate. We are almost all quick to abdicate our personal responsibility for the crises the world and we each are facing. Until and unless we change that getting onto a better path is a pipe dream. Politicians are people, governments are run by people, corporations are run by people. We forget that and treat them like some all powerful entities that act independently of all the rest of us on their own agenda over which we have no control. Very convenient when you want a scapegoat for all your problems so you can rationalize doing nothing, but complete and utter nonsense at the core. If you eat up and vote for the deluded pipe dream peddled by self serving politicians/corporate shills that there is a world with widely available good education, good social programs, good health care, good housing, good infrastructure, good (insert here all the things that make a society a decent one to live in) without everyone contributing a significant part of their working effort (directly or through taxation) to the common good you, not they, are the problem. If you keep buying/consuming whatever trashy widget and useless service corporations pump out and expect there to be no consequences to the planet/climate you, not they, are the problem. The solution is theoretically simple but it will hurt those that have the most most and they will fight tooth and nail to maintain or improve their social ranking so change won’t come without a fight (“hurt” here is mostly describing a psychological pain associated with having to accept less material wealth as sufficient and involves no actual hardship that should trouble any decent human morally). Humans rate their satisfaction with life largely against the material wealth of their neighbour (usually focusing on the injustice that allows the ones above them to have more while accepting as part of the good and natural order that they have more than their neighbour with less) regardless of how much they have themselves. This was a problem when the “world” for most people was their physical neighbour. It is a problem an order of magnitude, at least, worse in a world where the wealth of the tiny subset of the population that has the most is pressed into our faces 24/7 and they become the “neighbour” with more that we measure against. The problem is further compounded by the reality that those with the most will work incessantly to sucker those with less into jumping onto their self serving bandwagon by selling the nonsense dream that we can all have it all like them if we just work a little harder and continue to feed the machine. It is compounded again by the reality that the BS works every time at every level to make people act in ways that are not in their individual or collective interest. A politician/government can buy the vote of a significant percentage of the population (even that part that has much) by promising to improve their immediate individual lot by a few dollars (cancel vehicle license renewal fees, send out a hundred dollar tax rebate cheque, lower taxes, …) or by putting up a third party scapegoat as the source of all their ills and promising to reign in the imagined/exaggerated evil (immigrants, China, the Middle East, Muslims, Democrats, Republicans, LGBTQ..). This works again and again despite the reality that they are at the same time strangling funding for better education, social services, health care, etc. and dumping piss pots full of money down holes that lead directly into the accounts of those who already have the most. They can do it only because we keep taking the bait over and over and over again. You out number them a ten to one and without you they have nothing. You get the government/leadership you deserve. There are no excuses for doing nothing at the individual level (keep in mind that picking the Liberals over the Conservatives in Canada or DEM over GOP in the US is for all practical purposes doing nothing).
"Unfortunately, I fear that the majority of us just want fast, cheap driving."
Thats because the majority are focused on paying next week's food bill. Hitting 2 degrees is a noble goal but the kids need new shoes, and the power bill has to be paid tomorrow.
By will, what's meant is "excessive surplus money chasing self-actualization needs."
>>"The only scenario that gets closer to the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement is the most optimistic scenario"
Then let's be 100% perfectly clear and honest about this: that goal will not—and never was—possible for two very important reasons:
1. Most nations gave ambiguous NDC's when signing on to COP21 net zero pledge. China, for example, said that they wouldn't even *attempt* to provide pathways to net zero until *at least* 2035 because they want to remain classified as a "developing nation" which has less stringent emissions reductions requirements attached to them as signatories. Most other countries rubber-stamped their commitment without specifying actionable measures as well.
2. Net zero, per UN IPCC reports, relies heavily on CC&S (carbon capture and storage) for achieving a pathway to reality. To date, no CC&S technology has proven scalable at a meaningful level and is not cost effective. In other words, the whole pathway to net zero is based on a lie.
Lloyd and crew, I want to live somewhere in the U.S. that is walkable/bikeable, is safe, has minimalist modest housing, doesn't leave people on the street, and lets me interact with well-meaning people of challenging intellect that I can argue and discuss with. And that has a makerspace, and isn't wildly expensive.
Spot on again Lloyd! I, like you, am a pinko cyclist advocating for 99% of what you are writing about. The almighty car and the freedom to get in it and go, is probably going to be the death of us all. I can't even talk my lib friends (who are well aware of our climate predicament) into buying a hybrid vehicle, much less an EV or a bike. We are all hooked on ICE vehicles like junkies.
Had dinner w/ a friend who is a service manager at a local Mercedes/BMW dealership and we discussed this. His take was that EV's are more problematic than ICE cars. When I challenged him on that point because EV's have so fewer moving parts, he laid the blame on the short range and the lack of charging stations. He's correct on the latter point. Here in STL, MO, we are woefully behind in adopting and ramping up the infrastructure needed. Consequently, new EV drivers are unprepared and end up stranded. His dealership charges them $700 to haul the discharged EV back to the dealership and recharge it. It's no wonder his customers are unhappy! He was down w/ hybrids though which is ironic because now you have a vehicle w/ 2 propulsion systems to maintain and fix. I guess I'll start recommending them as a "bridge vehicle" in our transition to EV's since EV's are a hard sell.
We are in the middle of a giant energy transition yet the average Joe/Jane are clueless. The fossil fuel lobby and the politicians that are beholding to them have done a remarkable/criminal job of pulling the wool over the eyes of the general populace. It doesn't appear that we are after all, smarter than yeast.
"Consequently, new EV drivers are unprepared and end up stranded"
His customers must be pretty thick. There is a gauge on the dashboard telling them about their range in the battery. There are apps on their phone that tell them where the charging stations are and their state of operation.
If they are still managing to run out of power perhaps, they should not be driving. Of perhaps this story is a fabrication.
I wouldn't buy an EV if I couldn't charge it at home - which I can't, because our condo board doesn't want to install charge points and the electrical supply to our buildings couldn't carry the load. Meanwhile, I carefully and infrequently drive my seven-year-old PriusC and get five litres/100km (47 mi/USgal). The message? We do what we can, and people will see what we do, not what we say, and learn (but oh, so slooowwwly)!
A couple of issues: (1) Using a public charger could be difficult when there aren't many and some don't work, and the electricity being used is probably in daytime, thus more costly during a high demand period and (2) here in AB the fuel for generating electricity is mostly methane a.k.a. natural gas, thus not environmentally sound fuel for a marginally more environmentally sound vehicle (weight, size...)
The apps will tell you where they are and if the chargers are working. Plugshare for instance shows status (usually correct) of all networks.
I have never seen a charger network doing time based differential charging.
Nobody who can afford a EV is going to risk getting stuck on a road to save a couple of dollars. Remember you only need to charge enough to get to your destination charger, you don’t need a full charge. When I charge on the road its only enough to get me home where my normal charger is.
EV power management if different from ICE, EV’s charging is a lot of small charges frequently which ICE tends to be a tank full fare less frequently.
BTW, I live in the fossil-fuelled province of Alberta, Canada, where the 'government' is in thrall to fossil fuel interests (think: royaltie$) and is opposed to renewables, despite the appropriateness given our sunny, windy climate ...
Sadly, your last line is correct. I would love to get rid of cars. Bikes are so much more pleasant, and so is walking, especially if there are no cars. Yet we are locked in to a system that is car dependent, fully dedicated to the ideal of continuous growth, which is an economic and environmental disaster already happening. The evidence is clear. We are a ship, heading straight for a rock, while the captain and crew are looking backwards extolling the power of the propeller. Most of the passengers are staring back as well, while a few are looking ahead and screaming in a sound proof room. Ford, Trump, Orban, Putin, Netanyahu, Modi and a whole troop of other world leaders are not leading from wisdom, the are simply doubling down on the mistakes of the 1920's that lead into WWII. This time the crash will be far worse. Can we throw things into reverse? Not without a massive shift of the rudder toward reduction and alternative energy, with the emphasis on the former. China is doing the latter without reduction. 160 gigawatts of new solar in the last quarter is very impressive, but ignores the fact that the streets are crowded, albeit with an increase in the percentage of electric cars. I don't have hope that the politics will change without a collapse. That collapse is coming is clear to anyone brave enough to look ahead. Where is the politician brave enough to tell us that we need to consume less?
“Yet we are locked in to a system that is car dependent…”
What’s worse is that, even if we wanted to, we couldn’t reverse this, at least not anytime soon. Jason Slaughter pointed out that making our cities like Dutch cities is impossible because everything is so far away that people would literally starve. The Dutch stopped themselves before really getting started. We’ve been sprawling for literal decades and would have decades of damage to undo. I recently did a rough calculation based on American car adoption and Dutch bike adoption of how long it will take before we start looking like Dutch cities and came up with…160 years. That’s not a conservative estimate. A conservative estimate would be 240 years because it accounts for setbacks, backlash and political blowback. This is why I’m looking to move to Nederland.
“We are a ship, heading straight for a rock, while the captain and crew are looking backwards extolling the power of the propeller.”
More like we’re the titanic heading for the iceberg. And the only solution the captain and crew want to offer is rearranging the deck chairs. And the passengers (especially the first class passengers) cheer over their “genius.” I recommend looking into the two rules of neoliberalism: 1) cause markets, 2) go die. Of course, just as the first class passengers and officers got the lifeboats, the exceptions are: 1) these rules do not apply to the rule makers (crew), 2) these rules do not apply to the beneficiaries of markets (wealth class, the first class passengers).
I cannot say I disagree with you, but your estimate of 160 years likely means we will die before the change happens. Empires always collapse and usually it is environmental destruction. We are not exceptions. Recovery time will likely be measured in millions of years in our case, since we are talking a global collapse.
China may have added 160 GW of solar capacity but their carbon emissions continue to go up, up, up. In other words, their energy demands exceed the capacity to even flatline emissions, much less reduce them. This is essentially the same reality elsewhere around the globe.
I could not agree more with your point about the responsibility for electing politicians who favour cars over the climate. We are almost all quick to abdicate our personal responsibility for the crises the world and we each are facing. Until and unless we change that getting onto a better path is a pipe dream. Politicians are people, governments are run by people, corporations are run by people. We forget that and treat them like some all powerful entities that act independently of all the rest of us on their own agenda over which we have no control. Very convenient when you want a scapegoat for all your problems so you can rationalize doing nothing, but complete and utter nonsense at the core. If you eat up and vote for the deluded pipe dream peddled by self serving politicians/corporate shills that there is a world with widely available good education, good social programs, good health care, good housing, good infrastructure, good (insert here all the things that make a society a decent one to live in) without everyone contributing a significant part of their working effort (directly or through taxation) to the common good you, not they, are the problem. If you keep buying/consuming whatever trashy widget and useless service corporations pump out and expect there to be no consequences to the planet/climate you, not they, are the problem. The solution is theoretically simple but it will hurt those that have the most most and they will fight tooth and nail to maintain or improve their social ranking so change won’t come without a fight (“hurt” here is mostly describing a psychological pain associated with having to accept less material wealth as sufficient and involves no actual hardship that should trouble any decent human morally). Humans rate their satisfaction with life largely against the material wealth of their neighbour (usually focusing on the injustice that allows the ones above them to have more while accepting as part of the good and natural order that they have more than their neighbour with less) regardless of how much they have themselves. This was a problem when the “world” for most people was their physical neighbour. It is a problem an order of magnitude, at least, worse in a world where the wealth of the tiny subset of the population that has the most is pressed into our faces 24/7 and they become the “neighbour” with more that we measure against. The problem is further compounded by the reality that those with the most will work incessantly to sucker those with less into jumping onto their self serving bandwagon by selling the nonsense dream that we can all have it all like them if we just work a little harder and continue to feed the machine. It is compounded again by the reality that the BS works every time at every level to make people act in ways that are not in their individual or collective interest. A politician/government can buy the vote of a significant percentage of the population (even that part that has much) by promising to improve their immediate individual lot by a few dollars (cancel vehicle license renewal fees, send out a hundred dollar tax rebate cheque, lower taxes, …) or by putting up a third party scapegoat as the source of all their ills and promising to reign in the imagined/exaggerated evil (immigrants, China, the Middle East, Muslims, Democrats, Republicans, LGBTQ..). This works again and again despite the reality that they are at the same time strangling funding for better education, social services, health care, etc. and dumping piss pots full of money down holes that lead directly into the accounts of those who already have the most. They can do it only because we keep taking the bait over and over and over again. You out number them a ten to one and without you they have nothing. You get the government/leadership you deserve. There are no excuses for doing nothing at the individual level (keep in mind that picking the Liberals over the Conservatives in Canada or DEM over GOP in the US is for all practical purposes doing nothing).
"Note that she doesn’t say that the 1.5°C goal is dead."
This is part of the problem, refusal or denial that that target is indeed dead.
Some people when we are at 1.499999 will still be saying that 1.5 is doable.
"Unfortunately, I fear that the majority of us just want fast, cheap driving."
Thats because the majority are focused on paying next week's food bill. Hitting 2 degrees is a noble goal but the kids need new shoes, and the power bill has to be paid tomorrow.
>>"It would all be doable if there was the will."
By will, what's meant is "excessive surplus money chasing self-actualization needs."
>>"The only scenario that gets closer to the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement is the most optimistic scenario"
Then let's be 100% perfectly clear and honest about this: that goal will not—and never was—possible for two very important reasons:
1. Most nations gave ambiguous NDC's when signing on to COP21 net zero pledge. China, for example, said that they wouldn't even *attempt* to provide pathways to net zero until *at least* 2035 because they want to remain classified as a "developing nation" which has less stringent emissions reductions requirements attached to them as signatories. Most other countries rubber-stamped their commitment without specifying actionable measures as well.
2. Net zero, per UN IPCC reports, relies heavily on CC&S (carbon capture and storage) for achieving a pathway to reality. To date, no CC&S technology has proven scalable at a meaningful level and is not cost effective. In other words, the whole pathway to net zero is based on a lie.
Lloyd and crew, I want to live somewhere in the U.S. that is walkable/bikeable, is safe, has minimalist modest housing, doesn't leave people on the street, and lets me interact with well-meaning people of challenging intellect that I can argue and discuss with. And that has a makerspace, and isn't wildly expensive.
Where is this, or what keeps it from existing?
This place does not exist in North America. But it does exist in Nederland. Albeit not inexpensive, but it’s not as bad as many North American cities.
You basically described the domicile equivalent of "the perfect man"—and like him, it does not exist.
Could you initiate/create such a place?
Good Answer.
Spot on again Lloyd! I, like you, am a pinko cyclist advocating for 99% of what you are writing about. The almighty car and the freedom to get in it and go, is probably going to be the death of us all. I can't even talk my lib friends (who are well aware of our climate predicament) into buying a hybrid vehicle, much less an EV or a bike. We are all hooked on ICE vehicles like junkies.
Had dinner w/ a friend who is a service manager at a local Mercedes/BMW dealership and we discussed this. His take was that EV's are more problematic than ICE cars. When I challenged him on that point because EV's have so fewer moving parts, he laid the blame on the short range and the lack of charging stations. He's correct on the latter point. Here in STL, MO, we are woefully behind in adopting and ramping up the infrastructure needed. Consequently, new EV drivers are unprepared and end up stranded. His dealership charges them $700 to haul the discharged EV back to the dealership and recharge it. It's no wonder his customers are unhappy! He was down w/ hybrids though which is ironic because now you have a vehicle w/ 2 propulsion systems to maintain and fix. I guess I'll start recommending them as a "bridge vehicle" in our transition to EV's since EV's are a hard sell.
We are in the middle of a giant energy transition yet the average Joe/Jane are clueless. The fossil fuel lobby and the politicians that are beholding to them have done a remarkable/criminal job of pulling the wool over the eyes of the general populace. It doesn't appear that we are after all, smarter than yeast.
"Consequently, new EV drivers are unprepared and end up stranded"
His customers must be pretty thick. There is a gauge on the dashboard telling them about their range in the battery. There are apps on their phone that tell them where the charging stations are and their state of operation.
If they are still managing to run out of power perhaps, they should not be driving. Of perhaps this story is a fabrication.
I wouldn't buy an EV if I couldn't charge it at home - which I can't, because our condo board doesn't want to install charge points and the electrical supply to our buildings couldn't carry the load. Meanwhile, I carefully and infrequently drive my seven-year-old PriusC and get five litres/100km (47 mi/USgal). The message? We do what we can, and people will see what we do, not what we say, and learn (but oh, so slooowwwly)!
"I wouldn't buy an EV if I couldn't charge it at home"
thats reasonable though I do know a couple of people who charge only on public chargers and seemto do OK.
A couple of issues: (1) Using a public charger could be difficult when there aren't many and some don't work, and the electricity being used is probably in daytime, thus more costly during a high demand period and (2) here in AB the fuel for generating electricity is mostly methane a.k.a. natural gas, thus not environmentally sound fuel for a marginally more environmentally sound vehicle (weight, size...)
Thanks for your comment.
The apps will tell you where they are and if the chargers are working. Plugshare for instance shows status (usually correct) of all networks.
I have never seen a charger network doing time based differential charging.
Nobody who can afford a EV is going to risk getting stuck on a road to save a couple of dollars. Remember you only need to charge enough to get to your destination charger, you don’t need a full charge. When I charge on the road its only enough to get me home where my normal charger is.
EV power management if different from ICE, EV’s charging is a lot of small charges frequently which ICE tends to be a tank full fare less frequently.
Regards
BTW, I live in the fossil-fuelled province of Alberta, Canada, where the 'government' is in thrall to fossil fuel interests (think: royaltie$) and is opposed to renewables, despite the appropriateness given our sunny, windy climate ...