I'm on team humanity. In spite all our failings, I want humanity to succeed and reach for the stars. Success means having a livable planet. For idealists like me who are also realists, the only way to get everyone working toward this future is to put it in their self-interest. Anything else just. won't. work.
To dedicate yourself in a practical way to the future of humanity, Tesla's one of the few games around.
- you are ignoring the benefits that EVs could bring, as well as synergies with future technology improvements. Radically better battery technology coupled with cheap, affordable solar might be a game changer of unprecedented scale.
- On the other hand, there's no proof that "drastically reducing the low-occupancy car miles driven" or "reversing the car growth trend" is either feasible or beneficial (how do you achieve the goal? Any measure is likely to have side-effects. I haven't seen any realistic proposal that doesn't have potentially horrible side-effects).
Lastly, let me just tell you that I love it when people living in developed countries know what developing countries should do (which is typically "stay poor", but delivered in a more politically-correct way)
What are the horrible side effects of car pools?
There are no horrible side effects to "a healthier population"; however, the prohibition showed us that there may indeed be bad side-effects to banning alcohol consumption & distribution (which could be argued as a measure that leads to a healthier population).
As a city dweller I look forward to a future with less air and noise pollution.
I don't have much faith that laws can solve the problem, so the spread of electric technology is my best hope.
> We must drastically reduce the low-occupancy car miles driven and reverse the car growth trend in developing countries.
Any solution that ignores self-interest at the personal and state level is not a solution that can be banked on to work.
50% is hardly a small improvement. In some areas you are looking at a 70+% improvement.
Asking people to swallow standard of living deductions is a lot harder than them getting a slightly different type of car.
A nonprofit would depend on goodwill, not self interest, and to my mind, only one of those things is reliable.