EV's By Themselves Will Not Save the World. But They Are an Improvement. Here are Some More Things We Can Do

I saw a story linked on Reddit, whose author had figured out that Tesla is bad, and concluded that EV's are bad. I commented that I hope this sort of simplemindedness wasn't widespread, and I hope people will actually judge EV manufacturers individually. 

 

I got some severe pushback for that remark, with people saying that EV's aren't going to save the planet by themselves, and that it would be better if people didn't drive at all. 

Well, I didn't say that EV's would save us all by themselves. And I agree that it would be better if people drove less. 

But I don't see a feasible way to get people to give up privately-owned cars and private trucks altogether. But driving less would be good, and it would be better if people drove EV's rather than ICE. 

And replacing ICE with electricity in public transportation, and in cargo railroad trains, and in ships and aircraft, wood be good.

And solar, and wind, and geothermal power, and tidal. And smarter grids, and smarter agriculture, and smarter manufacturing, and smarter architecture.

And reforestation, and afforestation. 

And restoring wetlands!

And just as I don't see a way, short term, to make all people go without driving, I don't see a way to persuade them all to go completely vegan right now. But still, it would be better if they ate less meat. We can't make everything perfect right now, but we can make improvements.

It would be better if we generated less household waste. Better waste management, better recycling, better land management, better water management, better city management. Everywhere you look, there are things we're doing that we could be doing in a more efficient, healthier way. Which is where we came in: manufacturing EV's can be done in a cleaner or dirtier way. Tesla does it in a dirty way. That's no reason not to see whether other companies aren't doing it more cleanly. As if somebody in those companies actually cared about reducing greenhouse gasses.

It's not always 100% clear which way is best. For example, are plug-in hybrids the best way to go for the moment? Are they speeding the transition to pure EV, or slowing it down? I think they're slowing down. But I realize that I might be wrong. And either way, a plug-in hybrid pollutes much less than an ICE car. 

And if BEV advocates spend too much time squabbling with plug-in hybrid drivers, it could distract them from lobbying for that bike path they both want. Denouncing all EV's, because you want nobody to drive at all, could persuade people to just keep driving ICE. Again, there's a question of efficiency. Your energy and eloquence are yet another resource which can be allocated more efficiently, or less.

Speaking of driving, there sure has to be a more environmentally-friendly way of making roads than our current asphalt-based approach. 

And hopefully I've helped you think of many more things to do.

The Answer is, There is No One Answer

Sometimes when you come across something stupid, the best thing you can do is forget it and move on.

However, sometimes it just keeps gnawing at your brain like a stupid rodent. I suppose that's one of the things blogs are for.

Someone (I'll do him the kindness of not saying who) who seems to think he's extraordinarily intelligent, and has a considerable following who seem to agree, recently made an elaborate online presentation of all of the reasons why evs are not the answer and are not going to solve the climate crisis all by themselves: they are better than ice vehicles, he says, but they still have tires and drive on roads and other very bad things.

 

The thing is, I literally can't think of anyone, offhand, who has claimed that evs, all by themselves, are the answer. It seems to me that almost everyone bright enough to realize that evs actually are cleaner than ice vehicles, also knows that they are not perfect from an ecological standpoint, and also is in favor of addressing the climate crisis in a number of ways: not just with evs, but also with public transportation, solar power, wind power, geothermal, tidal, sustainable agriculture, a sustainable timber industry, afforestation, reforestation, veganism, smarter architecture, cleaner concrete, cleaner steel, cleaner rubber, better science, better education, better politicians, etc, etc, etc.

I say almost everyone, because this guy, after listing all of the reasons why evs aren't the answer,  said that trains, public transportation by rail, ARE the answer.

Maybe he was making a joke and I missed it. I've missed a few jokes in my lifetime. 

And public transportation by rail will be very helpful in decreasing humanity's carbon footprint. Along with with evs and many, many other things. As you very likely already knew. 

Making it questionable whether this blog post accomplished a thing. Except perhaps to warn you against those who believe that there is one single thing which, all by itself, will repair the Earth's climate. 

If there actually are any such people. There probably are at least a few here and there. Possibly even including the train-obsessed jerk who impelled me to write this.

Great Green Walls

First there was the Great Green Wall of China, begun in the late 1970's.



Then several decades later, Africa began its own Green Wall.



And the idea has been repeated in other places as well: plant many trees along the edge of a desert, in order to stop the desert from spreading. In China and in Africa, there are dramatic stories of regions which had been almost uninhabitable, being restored to fertile, sometimes even lush condition. Stories of farmers moving back to regions which they had abandoned.

In addition to curbing the growth of the desert -- the Gobi Desert in the case of China, the Sahara in Africa -- the atmosphere is cleaned, by taking carbon from the air and storing it in trees. Reducing the amount of carbon which is put into the atmosphere, by burning things like oil, coal and gas, is just one half of the solution to global warming. The other half is increasing plant life.

Planting trees in areas where there had been none previously is referred to as afforestation, as opposed to reforestation, replacing forests which had been removed. The Green Walls are just the two largest examples of afforestation currently underway in the world; smaller projects have been started all over the world.

As far as just exactly how large the Green Walls in China and Africa are -- I've found it very hard to find any precise statistics. For example, I can't tell you for certain whether the number of trees planted so far in China's Great Green Wall is in the millions, or the billions. And I would love to be able to tell you in great detail just what sort of changes of temperature, precipitation and so forth have occurred in the areas covered by the Green Walls, but I haven't been able to find that data either.

Also, there is some controversy over just how helpful afforestation is for the climate overall, and about just exactly what are the best methods for restoring arid regions. So, as always: education is crucial. In this case, education about all the positive and negative effects of afforestation, and about all the other methods to combat the spread of deserts. All I can tell you for sure is that I surely hope that afforestation is at least close to as effective as its most enthusiastic advocates claim.