We should certainly establish the same definition of “green”, as it is so wide it encompasses both of our positions.

I claim that most people expect EVs to be the solution for eco-friendly transportation that is sustainable and future-proof. And this is not true. That’s what I meant.

It’s important to clear out why it is unrealistic in order to address it. I see two reasons: 1.Governments not doing enough to promote and build effective public transit 2.People not willing to lose comfort of driving their own car - something that insulates them from other people and allows to move anywhere anytime.

And both are solvable through policy changes. First, we desperately need to invest in public transit. We can get money by taxing car sales more, which will shift both sides of the equation by making cars less affordable, while at the same time freeing up money for public transit development (of course, less sales of cars should be factored in). We need more routes, more comfortable conditions for passengers, more relatively low-scale options to drive passengers to less popular destinations. We also need to subsidize taxi and car rentals for cases when someone actually needs a car.

But those are the solutions that might get negative reaction of the public at first, and this tension is to me the most problematic (of course after lobbying made by automakers). Populist leaders will never go for that step, or they risk losing their popularity and influence.

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But they are being marketed as a very sustainable and ecologically friendly method of transportation which they very much are not. There’s no straw man there I just used a hypothetical to accentuate the meaninglessness of “more sustainable” forms of overconsumption. Cars are an incredibly wasteful and absurd form of daily transportation; especially in mass. The fight against climate change will directly affect your life and you will have to change aspects of your life for the benefit of the world as a whole. We cannot continue our path of overconsumption and overproduction and expect it to just work out or become sustainable in the future somehow. If the solution is being sold it isn’t the solution

Obviously, I’m aware that no one believes EVs will single handedly solve climate change. I’m not stupid and I don’t think you are either

You’ve just knocked down strawman yourself.

The point made by commenter is not that cars are the only source of climate change, but that EV industry is in itself heavily polluting and unsustainable. While it is true that it is a little less heavy on the environment than an ICE car (assuming you drive it regularly, because building an EV is less environmentally friendly, actually), it is still an incredibly environmentally unfriendly solution.

Manufacturing is super polluting and expends very limited resources in huge quantities. Energy sources are normally NOT green, and even if they are, they are not harmless, too. Tyres are still a giant problem. Parking lots require a lot of urban spaces, which leads to stretching cities and exacerbating problems with all transportation, as well as leading to deforestation on the outskirts and ramped up asphalt production. More roads are required, meaning again, more intervention in natural ecosystems, extreme amounts of resources and pollution.

There is simply no way you can drive a 2-ton car to move ~70kg human around with it making any ecological sense, while many people pretend that EV’s are here to save us. No, sorry, they are not; you’ll have to change your habits if you want to keep Earth habitable. Period.

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