Hacker News Reader

Comment by z3ncyberpunk | Hacker News Reader

I'll take the eccentric billionaire actually tackling real issues and making actual headway. People here are too narrow minded and have quarter to quarter short term memory disorder, seeming to forget that Musk and Tesla are the sole reason we have had the progress and momentum towards actually greener technologies, not simply greenwashed corporate nonsense that was churned out year after year without any was actual progress. Bezos is literally the greedy avatar of Edison in this race, who's only advances are only made through parasitic monopolies, tyranny, and his own ego. He literally walked out in a cowboy hat to tell the world "thank you for your money peasants!"

View on HN

"forget that Musk and Tesla are the sole reason we have had the progress and momentum towards actually greener technologies"

There are many things, that come to my mind with this statement, but I will just say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Because yes, he did gave momentum to the conservative car makers to get them to move their asses. But cars are only responsible for a tiny fraction of CO2 - and the whole green technology was kind of a thing before, with lots and lots of research about it all around the world. And implementing that research. Long before Musk was known outside a small bubble.

It is just, that we are increasingly starting to see the effects of climate change that makes people act.

I respect Musk for what he contributed. But I feel that glorifying him in this way, puts down all the other work in a unbalanced way.

"Bezos is literally the greedy avatar of Edison in this race, who's only advances are only made through parasitic monopolies, tyranny, and his own ego."

And I really hate to defend Bezos, but I do not think the success of Amazon comes out of a parasitic ego. But rather smart and efficient logistics. Incorporating robots and automatisation wherever possible. While exploiting the workforce, yeah, but Musk has not really a great record in that realm either.

> But cars are only responsible for a tiny fraction of CO2

Road vehicles account for 5% of global CO2 emissions.

That's not a tiny fraction IMO. It's not huge, but road transportation alone (not counting shipping) account for 5X as much CO2 aviation.

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport

In the context of the statement, ("sole reason..") I call it tiny.

I mean cars are very visible, so any movement there helps with the public image that things can change.

But he still was only one player in a comparitivly small segment, when green technology is so much bigger than just "cars". And "green cars" was and is much more than just "Tesla".

Transportation is not just cars. However, if you can force a break in one area, that frequently opens up opportunities in others.

And such is the case here. But Tesla is not just going after cars. They’re going after the whole energy production/transportation complex, which really is the biggest single contributor to greenhouse gases.

It just so happens that cars was the weak point that could be most easily attacked, and Tesla went for it. But there is much more on the table than just cars.

"But there is much more on the table than just cars."

There is. And I do consider Tesla to be a driving force for necessary revolutionary change.

I just do not agree, that they are the sole reason we had the change and momentum we are witnessing.

1 guy out of billions of people dealing with one 20th of the problem? That’s not tiny.

Does he deserve credit for all green technologies? Certainly not, but its disingenuous to say that cars account for a "tiny fraction" of CO2.

Before Tesla, "green cars" were basically hybrids like the Prius. Tesla legitimized purely electric cars as an actual alternative.

Considering teslas are only sold in a few countries, and by far mostly in the USA, that number is likely more like 0.1%

Can't get from 0% to 5% without first hitting 0.1%

Yes but you show any other individual doing more? Musk deserves some well earned credit here.

When you say tiny fraction, do you take into account the total carbon emissions for the life of the car?

Direct emissions are in single digits, but what about decades of maintenance that requires oil changes, parts production, transmission changes, etc?

An EV is much simpler than an ICE vehicle, has lesser metal and requires fewer moving parts.

Metal production is highly carbon intensive. Not to mention recycling and reusing.

a car which was specced for 80km/h and head-to-head collision with similar cars would save even more metal/ressources.

As well as leaving out stuff like: AC, car-grade entertainment computers (look at SV superfunds sites for how great chip production is), electrical seat-actuation, windows and ...

I did some sleuthing recently because I am quite sceptical about the whole "burn rocket fuel to go to space during a climate disaster" thing and found a study indicating that the current trend is going to cause more damage than CFCs.

"Future ozone losses from unregulated rocket launches will eventually exceed ozone losses due to chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which stimulated the 1987 Montreal Protocol banning ozone-depleting chemicals, said Martin Ross, chief study author from The Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles"

"If left unregulated, rocket launches by the year 2050 could result in more ozone destruction than was ever realized by CFCs."

I think their, and the government's, motivations should be under heavy scrutiny right now. They're both externalising costs. The damage needs to be priced in. I think there's a lot of untapped research to be explored for alternative ways of lobbing things in to orbit.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090331153014.h...

> But cars are only responsible for a tiny fraction of CO2

I mean, yeah, if every billionaire tackles a fraction, then we saved ourselves?

> I respect Musk for what he contributed. But I feel that glorifying him in this way, puts down all the other work in a unbalanced way.

The thing is, beyond this HN bubble, most people need a leader of some sort. He takes credit for everything (and also the blame if things go wrong). I'd have a more funnier persona than Elon, but his cyberpunk style sells me too.

> While exploiting the workforce, yeah, but Musk has not really a great record in that realm either.

No one and no country does.

Amazon has invested 10's of billions into wind farms, solar farms, hydrogen fuel cells, electric/hydrogen vehicles, etc.

Cool and that tens of billions that you claim they dumped into research has done absolutely almost nothing for anyone at all. We don't have Amazon wind farms we don't have any Amazon solar panels and battery packs hooked up to our houses we don't have any EV cars from Amazon. We have a richer centric billionaire making really crappy low earth orbit rockets and stealing everyone's money.

I didn't say it was research. Those billions went into wind and solar farms that are generating GWs of electricity right now.

You can see a map of their global wind and solar farms here: https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/the-cloud

Bezos making the world greener?

His big trucks deliver a few packages daily to one, or two, households.

Those electric fleet commercials seem like PR BS.

If I ever do see an electric truck barreling up my street; I bet they will be heavily subsidized by our tax money in the form of credit.

What is he doing that's green?

That cowboy hat was pure ego, and vanity. Two bald men on a carnival ride might not be good for his single sexy time?

All the money in the world, and you will never know which lady of the night truly loves you? He should have pulled a Zuckerburg.

If you take into account the total fuel spent, per item, Amazon delivery would have less.

Fuel spent per item is more or less the same upto the nearest warehouse, whether that is Amazons or walmart.

Fuel spent per item from walmart to home is more because you have one car going to amazon for the item and a bunch of others. However, with Amazon, it is one truck delivering hundreds to a neighbourhood.

Ao, in almost all cases, delivery by Amazon is better for the environment, or at worst, same as that of alternatives.

I love when people complain about how Tesla receives tons of government subsidies, ALWAYS neglecting to mention that they're dropping the bucket compared to what the other gasoline car manufacturers get in subsidies every year...

> His big trucks deliver a few packages daily to one, or two, households.

20 people in your neighborhood take a 2.5 ton car to the store and back, or one truck drives around multiple neighborhoods and drops off packages. I don't think delivery is a clear cut loss

I'm sorry but better energy storage and electric cars for the middle class isn't going save us. It's not progress, it's a distraction along the way to ecological collapse.

If electric cars are part is the solution, we need demand for infrastructure (mostly charging, but also maintenance expertise). Middle class-driven Teslas are sufficiently present to have induced building infrastructure, from which other classes can profit.

If electric transportation is not part of the solution, you're right about that being a distraction.

You're right it's going to be the industrial level where we're actually going to feel the effects, so i think I will still go with the person who's making a giant electric gigafactory to make electric cars not polluting entirely everything.

Maybe. It's always possible that as a civilization we are saddled with too many never-going-to-progress-until-we-stop-doing-x technologies. Maybe it's not a distraction, but using a market to develop a capability that will save billions.

You're quite right.

I'm very hopeful that this will get trough to people. Someday.

>not simply greenwashed corporate nonsense

Isn't Musk the guy who crashed bitcoin after making a pile of money claiming it was dirty? How much pollution does just one of his mega-sized moon-mission rockets eject? Just for his personal (yes) entertainment.

Rich sportsmen buy expensive cars. Super- rich businessmen play with rocket launches.

As the joke goes: "How to become millionaire in the airline industry? starting as billionaire". That speaks to the risky nature of airline business.

Rocket business is even riskier. The market is small and is absurdly difficult to enter. Musk almost got bankrupted when Spacex failed to reach orbit after three tries in 2008. He went all in.

Of the current crop of newly launched rocket companies -- Rocket Lab, Astra, Firefly, Relativity -- do you spot any super rich businessmen?

About the same if not less pollution than every other rocket that's launched into space... For a fraction of the cost plus we get to reuse the materials.

If you really are interested in the answer to your question about pollution this is a good video to watch

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C4VHfmiwuv4

Reply on news.ycombinator.com