14/09/2023
Republican debate allotted to climate change, much time was devoted to the notion that Biden's support for all-electric cars is a very bad idea. They have a point.
All-electric cars appear to be a powerful tool for reducing greenhouse emissions. But a developing line of argument holds that they are less effective at curbing global warming than hybrids or cars powered by internal combustion engines. While all-electric cars emit no carbon from their tailpipes — they don't even need tailpipes — the electricity that drives them may have been produced by burning coal. Furthermore, they require absurdly heavy batteries constructed with scarce minerals largely mined in places such as China.
In fact, the Swedish carmaker Volvo recently announced that the carbon emissions required to produce its all-electric vehicle are 70% higher than its gasoline equivalent. Volvo says that its all-electric car would need to be driven up to 68,000 miles before it breaks even on carbon emissions.
Here's the real problem with all-electric cars: They lull us into believing that we can solve the climate crisis without significantly modifying the way we live. The problem isn't cars with internal combustion engines; the problem is cars.
The fact is, our headlong descent into climate chaos is very, very likely to continue and accelerate unless we change fundamentally the way we live, which probably means fewer cars, smaller homes, much less air travel, less red meat and, frankly, less comfort and convenience.
Unless we're willing to face up to these hard realities, are we being any more honest than the seven Republican candidates on stage last week who were unwilling to commit on climate change? Or are we tacitly joining Ramaswamy in the intellectually dubious but comforting illusion that it's all a big "hoax"?
