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A comment on The electric car as a talisman of false hope. Parent comment

Re:The electric car as a talisman of false hope by JKCalhoun on Friday August 16, 2019 @12:19PM (#20716705)
> And the author fails to explain why (in the context of climate change) that's actually a problem ... if those ICE cars become electric cars, and that electricity comes from solar/wind/nuclear/hydro/geothermal/etc., then... where, exactly, is the carbon footprint?

The author very specifically points that out:

> ...our cars primarily exist to connect things, things that require immense extraction and fossil fuel energy to build, run and maintain: roads buildings factories shopping centres suburbs cities airports and so on. It is not just the car itself that is unsustainable; it is our entire way of life and the system that underpins it.

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Re:The electric car as a talisman of false hope by yellowapple on Friday August 16, 2019 @05:44PM (#20720009)
Okay, and those things don't go away - nor do we stop building them - if we use buses or trains or planes or boats or teleportation pads instead. What about cars, specifically, contributes to this where other modes of transportation do not?

I can almost understand this for roads (but buses still need those, too!). Literally everything else is entirely orthogonal to cars or the lack thereof; abolishing cars entirely v. switching to electric-only would have zero impact there.

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