||| FROM FROM BILL APPEL |||
Some of us demand that our government tighten and enforce environmental laws. When not on Zoom, we drive to environmental organization meetings and fundraisers in our fossil-fueled cars to support …. Wait! What?
Exactly. We have reasons why we don’t drive electric vehicles. One, of course, is initial cost. So we drive our fossil fueled car and considering total costs, end up paying more. And the money we think we’re saving by buying a cheaper vehicle is more than lost in fuel and maintenance costs. But it gets worse.
That illusory “saving” is in fact a carbon cost inflicted on the environment. Undoing the damage will be costly. It’s up to us, not the oil companies. Take responsibility. If you can afford a new or used EV, buy one so that your presence at meetings to cure our planet becomes genuine.
Oh, and your gas guzzler? Trade it in. The person who buys it is probably trading up from something even worse for the environment.
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Good letter, Bill, but help me figure this out.
What has always held me back, is the idea that buying a car requires that one be manufactured. Doesn’t the manufacture itself of my new electric car cause damage to the the environment? If my calculation is wrong, I will buy one right away. Seriously.
Ely, Your comment is so relevant to our human dilemma. Using our possessions until they cannot reasonably be repaired is probably best -though I have gifted perfectly useable cars to friends or relatives who needed one. I know of cash for clunkers programs that exist for the purpose of removing highly polluting cars from (California) roads. I gave my Prius to a friend who still uses it. I love my Leaf EV that I bought six years ago!
Thanks, Janet. I just wish I had purchased an electric car instead of my Mazda … good mileage, but still a polluter.
Eleanor, Buy a used EV instead. We bought a 3 year old Kia EV from David at Island Motors and sold our older Subaru. It was bought by an islander who uses it as his work vehicle doing construction. He bought it instead of a larger older, likely more polluting, pickup truck.
Elly,
It is not just the air pollution and the raw materials and manufacturing to consider when choosing a car. I just read that the largest gasoline spill in U.S. history continues to leak from an aging pipeline in North Carolina. The leak was discovered by two boys.
https://www.wfae.org/energy-environment/2021-08-13/slowly-bubbling-out-1-year-after-huntersville-colonial-pipeline-gasoline-spill-cleanup-continues
‘Slowly Bubbling Out’: 1 Year After Huntersville Colonial Pipeline Gasoline Spill, Cleanup Continues”
I object to calling the response a “clean up”. The “clean up” consists of hauling the contaminated soil to a landfill somewhere.
I’ve been driving an EV since 2012, and save well over $1,000 per year in “fuel” and near zero maintenance. We are a two car family, and always use the EV first, and fall back on the Honda CRV when a second vehicle is needed. We are about to replace the old CRV with a VW ID.4, which has 260 mile range between charges, and three years of free charging, which is ideal for our style of road-tripping.
There is no perfect solution. But the Union of Concerned Scientists summed it up well:
1. EVs aren’t the perfect solution for the future of transportation, they’re just much, much better than gasoline vehicles
2. EV sales are a small fraction of US autos now, but that’s changing rapidly.
3. Now is the time to accelerate the switch to EVs to rapidly decarbonize transportation, which is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. In Washington, it represents 46% of state emissions.
https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2020-05/evs-cleaner-than-gasoline.pdf
I agree with Bill Appel that everybody “should” upgrade to an EV… but there are many stuck in the current economic system that simply cannot afford too.
In light of that I’m reminded of the following quote gleaned from a video in the 12/12/19 Atlantic, “Mass Tourism is Destroying the Planet”.
“It is not the inherent fault of individuals that the planet is warming, it’s the fault of how we run our energy systems, and there are people in charge of it, and they have made decisions that force us all to submit. It’s very tacky when they talk about individual responsibilities because it takes the focus off the connective systematic decisions that got us to this place.”
Thank you so much Janet and Jim. I will go forth and know that I am doing the right thing.
Agreed, Michael; my prod was expressly to those who can afford it. The higher initial price for EVs, and the availability of a tax credit that is only usable by the well-off tilt the playing field of, frankly, social injustice. The money the government loses via tax credits to the better-off could better subsidize EVs purchased by lower-income folks whose vehicles, being older or with defective ignition systems, smoke the most.
We are forced to deal with the system as it is and hope to live long enough to be part of and see the change.