Switching To Electric Cars Isn't Going To Be Enough To Save The Planet, But Don't Let That Stop You
You’re probably wondering whether we’ve gone half-mad, but then again, maybe you’re not.
Electric cars are going to become a reality for a lot more of us over the next 10 years or so, and after that the avalanche will start. In 20 years it might be that most of us have electric daily drivers. But for all our environmental conscience in the West, certain American leaders excepted, it’s not going to stop global warming.
When the Asian markets finally tip over the edge of the precipice into the rapid expansion of the middle classes, car purchases are going to go through the roof. As happened in Europe and the US during the post-War period, economies grew and people got richer. They bought cars, bigger houses and started going on holidays abroad.
The same is going to happen across Asia as surely as the sun is to rise in the east tomorrow. We’re already warming the planet worryingly quickly, according to actual science (as opposed to alternative science), so an explosion of new, basic, cheap, inefficient cars in countries with a combined total of several billion people is not going to do anyone any favours. This problem isn’t localised: if the global atmosphere suffers, we all suffer.
Oil giant BP this week predicted that global oil demand would still be growing in 2035. “It’s not Teslas and the US. It’s the fact that 2 billion people, much of that in Asia, are moving to middle incomes, can buy their first motor car and that drives up oil demand. It’s that stuff that really matters,” said Spencer Dale, BP group’s chief economist.
It gets worse. In fact, the company expects that demand for oil won’t peak until 10 years later, sometime in the mid-2040s. Greenpeace was furious, naturally. Why should BP be realistic when instead they should be blindly insisting that we’ll all be in Nissan Leafs by March?
Anyway, the fact is that, barring something world-changing, Asia is about to start burning so much fuel that it’ll make today’s American consumption look like a quick sip at the global oil well. But that’s exactly why the rest of us need to start taking action to offset that as much as we can. Investing in cleaner technologies, renewable energy and zero-emission cars is something we shouldn’t be fighting, or disputing the merits thereof. It’s something we should be accelerating.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want internal combustion banned (ever), and I don’t want today’s cars to be legislated off the road with excess taxation or fuel costs. I want us to be free to continue to enjoy the fruits of suck-squeeze-bang-blow for the rest of time, if we want to. But it’s surely beyond reasonable argument that we need to stop burning vast quantities of stuff that’s not exactly very good for the planet. Using our glorious V8s a bit less wouldn’t hurt, would it? Using the plug-in ecobox in the week and then taking our pride and joy out at the weekend would be the best of both worlds, right?
Some people will argue that Asian growth makes Western environmentalism pointless, but that same growth is the exact reason we need to take global warming more seriously, working in whatever ways we can to offset the rampant consumption in the East. And, by proxy, that means we need to start taking electric cars more seriously. Far from this being the end of the world as we know it, we might just help preserve it for our grandkids.
Comments
About warming up the planet, did you know that producing meat generates more carbon dioxide then all the motorized vehicles in the world? I suggest to eat less meat to safe the world and drive ev’s for cleaner air.
Because 30 min awaiting to refuel is too mainstream
How about we clean up big industry first??
Emissions from motor vehicles pale in comparison with the pollution goods production creates, air and otherwise. Chimneys from factories and power plants are heavily regulated where I live so they pretty much just emit pure steam. But in big parts of the world they still are free to emit anything unfiltered.
Oh and cows. You woudn’t believe how much methane gad they produce (and how effective it is as a greenhouse gas compared to co2)
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Just put a huge airtight dome over asia like they did in the simpsons quarantine and the problems fixed
the world is unintelligent. Shipping containers alone produce %50 of all human pollution, that is a fact few people will comprehend. Cows alone produce more CO2 than cars! The production of an electric car is stimated to do more long-term environmental damage than a diesel Land Rover Discovery, and i can see exactly why, take Tesla’s for example
Start at a huge mine in Australia. Ship acid to China for further production/refinement. Ship to America for assembly. Ship final cars to designated country. The car has done so much environmental damage before its even moved under its own weight and the batteries will only last 15 years or so.
My grandparents neighbor owns a 1922 Bentley racer, he is a very elderly guy these days, he rightfully explained to me that his Bentley has caused less environmental (smaller footprint) damage than any modern ‘eco’ car. Its a disgrace to our society that we think electric cars are the answer.. truly a shame.
What about algae-based fuels? Injun86(AE86squad)
This is exactly what I’ve been thinking all the time. The first world are causing some of the problems, but it’s the second-world (rapidly-developing countries in Asia and parts of South America) that are causing the problem. And it’s because they’re acting on the example WE (America and Europe) set for the past 200 years.
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What about hydrogen powered cars