It's really weird how trucks get a pass from people who don't give cars a pass. If tire wear is proportional to road wear, the majority of tire-originating microplastics is from semi trucks, not commuter sedans.
People talk shutting off the faucet while brushing one's teeth but ~70% of global freshwater usage comes from agriculture and ~20% from industry, with municipalities accounting for only 10%
I agree with internalizing externalities, but let's not pretend that isn't part of individual behavior (consumer demand drives industry), or that individuals don't benefit from them in some way.
And industry lobby drives government policy and regulation.
Industry apologism will not help us move towards mitigating climate crisis effects.
Industry has externalized most of their environmental costs, this needs to change ASAP.
- Energy use in buildings is 17.5% of CO2 emissions
- Energy use in Industry is 24.4% of CO2 Emissions, The steel industry alone accounts for 7% of global emissions of CO2
The _number_one_priority_ is to force out Coal and Methane Gas from the Energy production sector and heating. That alone would cut global emissions by more than 40%.
This is a gigantic step because it solely depends on government energy policy, Infrastructure investiment, and also requires us to advance against an extremely embedded lobby of both Coal and Oil&Gas.
Even when it comes to buying products it's a tough sell - I know my phone battery is made with slave labor, but it's not like I can choose to buy the one that isn't. So when it comes to industry, we share exactly 0% of the blame - not just as individuals, but consumers as a group[]. The problem is two-fold: industry leaders are greedy and politicians aren't working in our best interests. If either of those went away, the problem would be solved. Unless you're in one if those two groups, none of it is your fault.
[] In democratic countries, it can be argued that the voter base is at fault for electing these corrupt politicians. I largely agree with this, but it's a pretty complex topic.
Like the batteries, it's not like I can choose the ones that aren't corrupt. The alternatives don't exist. In the rare event that they do, they get blocked out by the parties or rendered ineffective by their colleagues. At least it's that way here in the US -- which may or may not fit your definition of democracy. The major job requirement for an American politician is how well you can fundraise. And that's just to get a foot in the door of one of the entrenched parties -- they can still just decide to back someone else.
But you can choose to go without the phone that requires the battery. Now I know the canned response is “it’s not practical these days to not have a smart phone”, but going without one will not kill you. If the only phone available killed one person for every phone sold would you still demand to have one?
So who is the criminal here? Me, right now, using my 6 year old phone on the bus? Or is it the capitalists who pushed hypothetical me to the brink of death for trying to live "sin"-free and the politicians who oppose any attempt to keep them accountable?
And more importantly, what's the solution? Because going full Amish isn't nearly as scalable as you might think.
All you’ve pointed out here is there’s a limit to what you’re willing to do for your beliefs, and that at some point you’ll accept someone performing slave labor to keep your fancy, but still not required, electronics.
In fact I don't think individuals have much choice. They can inconvenience, or hinder themselves, in what effectively amount to a race amongst each other, or they can participate as fully as they can, thereby also dealing as much damage as the system or culture lets them. Circling back to cars and car culture as a prime example, the popular Not Just Bikes channel also talks about this. In their example of a city in the Netherlands, it's not that people love to bike and therefore bike a lot. It's that the environment is optimized to getting around in not just cars, but for pedestrian, and cycling traffic. Therefore people, who just want to get around, choose these two more often. As long as there's a game, they'll be players, so in order to minimize damage by the players, we need to change the game. Not the player.
This isn't meant to disagree with you or the people who bring the Netherlands up as a positive example.
The stats reflect this (car usage is still going up / barely going down, car size increasing) and it is easily explained given how far people are expected to live away from work without paying a small fortune in rent. On top of that, infrastructure outside cities is getting worse for car-free enthusiasts. Public transit is getting actively worse and more expensive, roads are still optimized around cars first and foremost, and WFH is still barely pushed.
The Netherlands is a great example of how difficult it is, and how easy it is for a government to stop trying beyond the lowest of lowhanging fruit (carfree city centers). A few Americans gasping at the infrastructure of Utrecht not being atrocious doesn't change the 1 hour commute from a popular driveby town 25km away from a medium-sized city.
My country (Poland) has been de-urbanizing since the turn of the century for this exact reason.
People can't afford housing in city centres, so they buy properties in the suburbs and opt to drive everywhere instead.
The first generation that did this is currently nearing retirement and they'll soon have to decide on how to proceed. Fuel is expensive, driving skills wane with age and in an aging society finding a buyer for a house that appreciated in value but has scheduled maintenance of key components is going to be difficult.
What people fail to realize is just how much alternatives have to win out on cars to make a dent. Being marginally less expensive isn't enough when opportunity costs are far higher.
Those alternatives can be much better. That's the real story hidden within The Netherlands: you can't make a half-hearted attempt and expect it to solve itself after because the world believes Utrecht, an already small city by global standards, is the status quo of the entire country. If it doesn't cut deep into car ownership nationwide, it's not the success people claim it is.
I have to disagree. I have lived in Drenthe all my life and what you are saying is just not true where I live. Maybe it's different in the south.
Also hard disagree on WFH, NL has an old and well-established WFH culture and the highest rate of working from home in Europe according to some quick searching. [0]
I agree that public transport is too expensive though - I'm still technically a student so I benefit from freedom public transport, but it would be a serious expense if I had to pay for it.
[0] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/europeans-work-home-c...
Sam Vime's "Bike" theory of socioeconimc unfairness?
There's always this chicken-and-egg problem where legislation is talked about as though it could make us want different things, when in fact, the electorate wanting what it wants now, such legislation would be a losing horse for any politician. Making the moral choice seem attractive to one's neighbours is what I'd call true aikido.
I agree especially with this, but with the rest of your comment as well. Culture, politics, economy go hand-in-hand, with no clean initiator among them. I currently think that everyone should try their best, and that those with more influence have more responsibility as well.
We simply cannot solve the problem by asking consumers to care more about the planet than feeding their kids, particularly when “caring about the planet” in this way is basically guesswork.
Climate change and other environmental problems are systemic, and thus we need systemic solutions—in the case of climate change, the ideal and gold standard is carbon pricing (with border adjustments).
My water comes out of a Great Lake and substantially ends up back in it, about as clean as it came out. It's not used up. Some energy is consumed making it potable and pumping it around, and then treating it.
Farms in the Midwest happen to catch a lot of rain, are they using freshwater in a different way than an almond orchard in California, or is it the same (my expectation is that the almond orchard is considered a user and the Midwest farm is often not).
Anyways, they do use in freshwater differently. Where I grew up in NW Ohio, there is practically no irrigation. It rains enough there’s no need. Freshwater use is passive, in other words. Out west, farms have to actively pump water to irrigate since there’s not enough rain. They can control how much freshwater they take out of the water source in a way the Midwest farmer can’t.
Me preserving water here in rainy Singapore doesn't help anyone in Spain, nor vice versa.
Interestingly, the natural state of much of California was a swamp. We put in a lot of effort converting the swamp to desert.
If we reestablished the swamps, California would be a much less pleasant place to live, but it might be a better place to grow stuff like rice.
[1] You're using "Northern California" and "Southern California" differently from everyone else; in normal use, Northern California is the Bay Area, not the north of the state.
No, norcal is north of LA, not just the bay area. I’ve never heard of anybody referring to the bay area as norcal, it’s always “bay area”
But my point is that the region to the north of, say, Berkeley, is not part of "Northern California". It's too far north for that.
We consider ourselves part of Northern California and have since at least the 70s. For many up there, the Bay Area is only nominally part of Northern California, in fact as a kid I didn’t think it was. But having gone on to live in San Francisco for a long time, I came to realize that the the Bay Area, for better or for worse, has more in common with Redding then it does with Manhattan Beach.
But I can’t figure out what you think the too-northern Northern Californians should call themselves if they let you lop off the Bay Area (and most would thank you for it).
Near my home town a big volcanic lake has been used to get water during droughts and it got to a dangerous low level in recent years.
We have currently seen major droughts in Europe and it severely affects the ongoing energy crisis. A lot of power plants, nuclear and others, are in direct danger of not being able to be cooled anymore because you need RIVERS for that. And they need to be cool.
Germany is currently experiencing issues with low water levels in some of its major waterways, such as the Rhine. When they dry up to low levels periodically, and they evidently do nowadays, then you have to shut down the plants accordingly.
In France, rivers are too warm to cool plants [1]. There needs to be water AND it needs to be cool. There is no nuclear power without water cooling.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threa...
Just for clarity for others, the reason the water needs to be cool is so that after being used for cooling it doesn't come out too hot and kill wildlife. French plants have applied to temporarily lift these restrictions[1] (which also is not great).
If this becomes a problem longer-term, it might be possible to build larger cooling reservoirs for the water prior to being released back into the river.
1: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-asn-nuclear-reg...
The water doesn't really need to be cool, it can also be used in cooling towers, which means you don't have to put it back into the stream, and therefore you don't care about water temperature. The issue with river water is that we currently don't have enough to divert it for all our needs, be it for a nuclear plant, for irrigation or for drinking.
This winter and spring have been exceptionally dry in France, with slightly more than half the rain we usually get.
The issue is that you want to live in a desert but with a lifestyle like you're not in a desert.
The hard conversation you need to have is that California is not habitable. There's no water and there's nowhere to grow food. If you want to make it habitable you'll need to turn all those golf courses into farms, raise cows on them, plant more trees, and try to expand those green areas as much as you can.
If you want to live in a green city, move to Glasgow, where there's loads of water and because it never gets above about 25°C or below about 5°C it's t-shirt weather all year round and you don't need to refrigerate your house.
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
mm 130 90 120 50 60 70 70 60 80 110 100
Rome average rainfall (https://www.holiday-weather.com/rome/averages/):
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
mm 25 20 19 18 33 6 7 0 42 38 49 96 120
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "drier" ?
You bought a latte last February? Well, then, you're also a buyer of human labor. You're a capitalist, too. The only difference between you and Elon Musk is that he's smarter. If capitalism is a problem, then you're part of the problem, because you do after all buy things. If you really believed in your anti-capitalist rhetoric, you'd grow the beans hydroponically in your basement (capabilities that, if you were serious, you would surely possess even if you weren't born into the tiny minority who actually benefit from the widespread and rigid enforcement of asymmetric state services called "property rights").
Meanwhile, the world is on track to be J. G. Ballard's Drowned World by the end of the century due to the persistence of a moribund socioeconomic system with no exit strategy or real means of improvement.
We produce most of our food for cattle, and cattle needs tons of freshwater (both consumed directly and indirectly).
That is the result of a decades old campaign strategy by BP and others [1].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...
I distinctly remember when Teslas became popular, the reaction from environmental types was often frustration because apparently environmentalism is supposed to be about sacrifice and yet Tesla is allowing the unwashed masses to help save the planet. Similarly, when debating climate policy, some of the strongest opposition to carbon pricing would come from self-professed environmentalists who were repulsed by the idea of aligned incentives—environmentalism is a bout rejecting one’s own interests; if the cheap thing and the environmental thing are the same, how will the True Believer distinguish himself from the unwashed masses? There is a deep attachment to pennywise and pound foolish “personal responsibility” solutions.
Honesty this is hard to believe, do you have any source/example to back it up?
* Not actually physically possible
* Its just coal powered
* It's worse for the environment because batteries die after 3 years
* Rare earths!!
* Subsidized foolishness
* Toys for rich people
* Communism
And weirdly those people all get paid to write op-eds in right wing tabloids.
> And weirdly those people all get paid to write op-eds in right wing tabloids.
Oh, spreading hate. Got it.
And why would you ignore climate change? Possibly because of the organised campaign to discredit the idea even though basic science made it clear it was a problem.
But now, they'll deny that crime against humanity even happened. "No one actually denied climate change they were just worried about government overreach" while demial is still being done by the same people.
It was all published in newspapers, we have it on record. We have academic studies of how many times certain newspapers admitted that climate change was caused by humans in their op-eds.
We have databases that track their lies over decades:
https://www.partnershipforresponsiblegrowth.org/research-1/c...
But no, now the people who let themselves be convinced by those lies bizarrely blame "Greens" or "environmentalists" for complaiming that EVs were too easy. Which despite being obvious lies doesn't seem to be considered "hate", but pointing out the well documented truth is?
>when you double the weight per axle, you increase the road damage by 16 times
>For example, while a truck axle carrying 18,000 pounds is only 9 times heavier than a 2,000-pound automobile axle, it does 5,000 times more damage.
"Excessive Truck Weight: An Expensive Burden We Can No Longer Support" from GAO
https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
unless you picture raising wheat in urban environment, in which case I'll just leave you to it.
This ain't rocket science.
In Europe, a truck may transport about 250000 packs of yoghurt. (Assuming 100ml packs.)
If the truck pays 3 Euro road maintenance tax per 30-mile trip from and to the railway cargo hub, that comes out at 0.0001 Euros per can of yoghurt, a hundredth of a cent.
A few hundred miles or so?
One EV road use tax in Australia (Victoria) is 2.5c per km, I'll assume that's fair for now (I doubt it is, but anyway). A prior post said a truck does 5,000 times more damage than a car, which means the truck should pay $125 per km if it's fair. So a 30 mile trip would be roughly $6000. About 2.5c per yoghurt.
Not a lot. But it's on each item and will add up. Not sure how often trucks run empty to and fro either, someone has to pay for that. Petrol excise here was halved to 22c/L and my car uses about 8L/100km so that 2.5c does not seem too unreasonable.
Are you arguing that making people pay for bread at all is 'regressive'?
And yes, eating to survive is kind of regressive in that sense, but it's not what I'm talking about. If we generally assume society is unfair but still balanced around current expenditures, adding more may upset that balance.
It's the overall tax burden (or net payment, for poor people) of the whole system that's important for these kinds of fairness considerations.
The design of individual taxes should be more concerned with efficiency and deadweight losses.
Bread should cost whatever it fetches on the market (and that will include pigovian taxes, if any).
The amount and frequency of welfare transfers to poor people should be independent of how much bread they buy and when.
To give a concrete example: you get your welfare check at the start of the month, and the government doesn't whether you buy bread with it or noodles, and shouldn't give you a refund either way.
I suppose it might be cheaper for drivers that way, but groceries and other items will all be more expensive, even for those who do not drive.
I consider most roads and basically all highways as meant for them, passenger vehicles are the luxury.
> In the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938, Congress asked the BPR for a report on "the feasibility of building, and cost of, superhighways... including the feasibility of a toll system on such roads." The BPR based its report on data collected from extensive highway planning surveys that had been conducted around the country beginning in 1935. The origin-and-destination surveys showed that transcontinental traffic was limited, with traffic heaviest around cities and in interregional movements. Given the low income of most motorists, toll roads would have a traffic-repelling character. As a result, most routes would not carry enough traffic to generate sufficient revenue to pay off bonds needed to finance their construction.
Instead, the BPR recommended construction of a network of toll-free express highways. The BPR's description of "A Master Plan for Free Highway Development" was its first description of what would become the Interstate System. Based on the survey data, the BPR explained that the primary justification for the network was passenger traffic, particularly congested city traffic, not interstate trucking. In fact, the report made little reference to trucks. [0]
Commercial trucking would not start to take foothold over rail until the 1960s, primarily under President Johnson.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal-Aid_Highway_Act_of_195...
Obviously you are not talking about the market price?
On scale rai is cheaper, but less you use the infra and less you transport at one time more expensive it will get.
That doesn't mean every single last meter needs to happen via truck (lots of deliveries in urban areas can happen via foot or scooter) but ... at one point you need to get the 200 cartons of milk to the supermarket.
We could simply use rail.
The idea that folks on bicycles should be subject to gigantic, badly designed commercial vehicles while going about their business is absurd and a product of decades upon decades of lobbying.
Sure, Just In Time is partly to blame for this. But if your stock intake deliveries now become a monthly event, you need to build a warehouse that holds about six weeks worth of raw material. That's cost.
And unless these folks on bicycles delved for and forged the metal for the bikes themselves, assembled the self-made parts and walked all the way to the Caribbean to get the tree juice for rubber tyres, chances are, a truck brought the bikes to them.
It’s worth looking at Switzerland where they have many electric spur lines that do handle the last mile.
Cars should be something that only a few people really need. Unfortunately auto makers and oil companies have had a huge influence on our government and society since World War II. The result is this stupid nonsense where you can't even go to a GROCERY STORE without some form of car. Where our train tracks are rotting and rail lines are slowly disappearing. Where you can't even go out your back door without seeing a monstrously loud big rig turning acres of asphalt into rutted gravel.
The US has some of the best railways in the world. It's just that for various institutional reasons the Americans suck at passenger rail, so people totally ignore that their freight rail works really, really well.
Guess which part of the industry is in government hands, and which part is privatised and deregulated?
The one part where the passenger rail does work well is where the government passenger rail company also owns the network...
> The U.S. entry into the war in April 1917 coincided with a downturn in the fortunes of the nation’s railroads: rising taxes and operations costs, combined with prices that were fixed by law, had pushed many railroad companies into receivership as early as late 1915. A year later, in a last-minute bill passed through Congress, Wilson had forced the railroad management to accept union demands for an eight-hour work day.
Government fixed prices, and made one of their factors of production (labour) more expensive.
It's not though, rendering the point moot. They are two vastly different materials with different models of wear.
A quick thought experiment would make this very apparent: Do trucks need to replace tires at magnitudes less distance travelled than cars? Do cars tires last 100x longer than motorbike tires?
I've seen it often said that a fully loaded truck is equivalent to 1,000 cars wrt road wear.
Even accounting for tyre numbers and thickness/sizes, it doesn't add up.
> Considering that the truck has eight axles and the sedan has two, the relative damage caused by the entire semitruck would be 625 x (8/2) -- 2,500 times that of the sedan.
https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
Many individuals can survive without a car given the right municipal commitment.
How would we supply the supermarket, though? A rail line would be unfeasible.
Everyone would live near a train station (or in larger urban areas, light rail that connects to the train stations). There would be a mostly-separate freight network with depots near every population center. Trucks could be used to get goods from the depot to the store. Some long-haul routes would be needed to serve remote rural communities, and some high-priority stuff like mail delivery.
The expensive part is buying new rightaways, a private company responsible for liabilities like trespassing, security, and runoff (all of which the highways get subsidized by the public)
If the US spent a small percent of what it does on highways it could reactivate tracks that have shutdown since the 50s, rail towns would rise again and be the central b rural hub for groceries again.
If the US replaced 1 lane of every 6+ lane interstate highway, as due for maintenance..., every major metro would have world class transit in less than a decade (you need 2 lines if you don't use modern safe switchingb at stations)