Well, mostly because my comments read more dramatically when I take the opportunity to cast a good antagonist for them.

Having electric cars that are more efficient and cleaner than existing cars would be great, and it would save a lot of energy and labor, but the amount of money and effort spent on attaining that goal is far greater than what (e.g.) Tesla is spending individually; it's the net total of many years of research and many years yet to come of implementation and manufacturing. (That is, it's not like Elon Musk is singlehandedly bringing us to an era of ubiquitous electric vehicles.) It strains my credibility to imagine that the same money and man-hours, if they were allocated with equal passion toward education, disease, or the elimination of poverty, would not turn a much greater ROI over a few decades than more efficient cars.

Our current situation is such that thanks to culture, incentives, and human nature, ninety-nine percent of educated, able people with the ability and drive to work very hard, decide to work at some personally profitable business or industry. I am not inclined to take the remaining one percent and criticize them for plucking what seems like extremely low-hanging fruit from the other tree.

The choir is my favorite place for preaching so I'm glad you agree!