As a blog-writer of average skill and talent I love this two-word phrase. It is a rich source for analogy; a base root from which one may grow a cluster of metaphors. But I will try not to over harvest it.
In California - where else - there is one public agenda, "Under a proposal by the California Air Resources Board, the state would require 35 percent of new passenger vehicles sold here to run on batteries or hydrogen by 2026. To give a sense of scale, in 2021, 12 percent of new car sales in the state were zero-emission".
"The proposal would gradually raise the sales of zero-emission vehicles—electric, hydrogen-powered or plug-in hybrids—to 100 percent of new vehicle sales by 2035."
"The proposal would also ban new gas-fueled cars by 2035, although it would not be illegal to own or sell a used one after that". Now, what does that really mean? If it was meant to take a huge bite into the air pollution debate in the Golden State, it is about as toothless as a baleen whale. But it will be one whale of a conundrum for the tax paying commuters of the state.
The electric shock will be real to the average California driver if this were to become a legislative reality. However, why should the rest of the country or the entire world be concerned with what happens in that state? Given the "right gestation" period, it could spread like a runaway infestation, couldn't it?
The average cost of the five cheapest electric cars in 2020, way before today's inflationary levels, was $33,000. Tesla's Model Y and 3 will set the consumer back by $40-45 K, plus tax and a higher insurance premium. Who knows what these prices will be by 2035.
The electric shock to confront the California tax payers begins at building 250,000 charging stations (presently 80,000) state wide; charging stations that will be fed from existing power grids that get most of their electricity from power plants that run on fossil fuel (natural gas and coal and a small percentage from nuclear power). That is shocking.
Even more shocking is that solar and wind power will barely get the state into clean energy independence. Not by a long shot and clearly not even long after 2035. So what is this electric car initiative going to do for the state? Image.
Image, created by and for those obsessed with climate change but oblivious to those among them who are least likely to afford the price of electric vehicles. On average, the second car in a two-car family in California is likely a used car (called for when a son or daughter gets a driver's license; a second wage earner; for the soccer mom, etc.) because two new cars are a huge burden, when you take into consideration the price of homes, gas, higher cost of living, and now inflation.
Clearly that proposed initiative for electric cars is almost detached from the realities of the average family condition. One may grant that the proposal was done with robust introspections by the esteemed proponents of the initiative, but one would be wrong. One may even conclude that such a move by the Board and, possibly, later by the State legislators is likely one that is unencumbered by logical thought. Significantly, that would be right!
Please inspect the image below. They look like blood vessels, each section a segmented artery. Staying with the analogy, the entire network is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy. More notably, however, it represents the daily annual truck traffic - 18 wheelers and delivery trucks, including vehicles that haul our trash. One must also include ambulances, firetrucks and emergency vehicles. Don't forget tractors, graders, harvesters, mining vehicles, etc. Should we aim for them to run on batteries and hydrogen fuel cells as well? Note how heavily red is represented by the state of California (left of the chart).
How about those coming from producers of the largest carbon footprint in use today. 45,000 daily flights over the entire country.
Image. If that is what we need to focus on, then we are highlighting a portrait detached from reality. The taxpayer who help pay (most of it) for the roads and air traffic infrastructures are asked to sacrifice the most.
These are questions we need to ask at the same time that we acknowledge that climate change is real.
Lest we forget, from the above definition, the central over riding component of climate is weather. As real as the weather is, climate change is real but we must put it in that context and a frame reference that encompasses millions of years of climate changes and evolutionary adaptations among organisms. But from that to segue the change into an existential threat in the timeline that activist proponents claim is a huge jump from what is real to unhinged alarmism.
Let's ask these questions first.
Is it not better to focus more money on research and initiatives to make combustion engines to run more efficiently and cleanly? There must be more that can be done first before we go all in with all bets on electric vehicles. Combustion engines last a long time. EV batteries and electric motors do not and the issue of the amount of waste in disposing them is not fully known. Most lithium and other elements for batteries are mined in hostile places and under horrible labor and human conditions. Wind power is at best erratic, kills a lot of birds (including endangered ones) and the jury is still out on its effects on the environment and wide swaths of land allocated and sea lanes appropriated for locating them. Solar panels use up a lot of rare earth elements as well and disposal of old components past their useful life (how long is not quite known yet) has not been addressed.
Meanwhile, we have made cleaner fuels, better and more efficient internal combustion engines. We eliminated leaded gasoline, made cleaner burning engines by eliminating carburetors, switching to fuel injections and now to direct fuel injections, catalytic converters, computer managed engine and transmission systems, lighter engine and body parts, etc. Funding increase in research and development is likely to usher additional efficiencies. As it stands, the U.S., Canada and western Europe have by far cleaner air due to those developments. Unfortunately, the two largest countries of about a billion each that rely on fossil fuel to run their industries have the most polluted air and water. Add to that the other surrounding countries getting more involved industrially in Asia, and the world is faced with an ever burgeoning problem with air pollution.
How about privatizing the mass transit systems. Amtrak has not had a black-ink year in decades. How about the U.S. Postal Service? We didn't know how inefficient and budget draining their service is until we saw how Amazon and other internet sellers showed us. We didn't know how NASA overspent taxpayers money until Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos launched SpaceX and Blue Horizon within budget and in time. It is about time we end the legendary mishandling of taxpayers money by the very government that pushes the climate change initiative down the throat of ordinary citizens. There is enough that can be saved to fund research into much safer, compact nuclear power generators. Nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers have proven the power capability of small reactors that can clearly power small cities and towns. An aircraft carrier can go for months without refueling, yet 5,000 military personnel , enjoy unlimited energy to maintain a small-size town, including unsurpassed capability to launch aircraft anywhere in all the seven seas.
Climate utopia, if ever there is going to be such a thing, can never be a localized phenomenon. A "clean" North America and western Europe are of little use on a globe that circulates the same air over and over.
The entire planet is better served to help those regions that need it most in improving their path to cleaner industries.
The evolution of the atmosphere could be divided into four separate stages:
1. Origin
2. Chemical/ pre-biological era
3. Microbial era, and
4. Biological era.
The entire solar system is approximately 5 billion years old, give or take a few million. The Biological era (humans and oxygen breathing organisms) came only during the last 2 billion years. Our ancestors did not even show up until the last 100-200,000 years. During all that time, all organisms (plants and animals alike) went through millions upon millions of changes, each subsequent change due to mutation and adaptation resulted in better suited life forms.
Shockingly, those that survived and thrived did it in the absence of climate activists, alarmists and unnecessary legislation.
What is needed is sane, well thought out legislation or regulation to pave the way to cleaner atmosphere for the entire globe - not just California. Now, whether we like it or not, the planet is indifferent to our meddling - well intentioned or not. We may be saving ourselves but we cannot be too presumptuous as to say we are saving the planet. Earth can take care of itself as it had for eons, long before we were even here. The planet will be here for quite a while and we are merely temporary occupants.
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