Well, at least if you buy a Tesla, you’re not supporting big oil companies like Exxon — oh wait…
“Oil major Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) is in talks with Tesla (TSLA.O), Ford Motor (F.N), Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and other automakers to supply lithium, Bloomberg Law reported on Monday citing people familiar with the matter.”
Let this be yet another reminder that the sustainable future is walkability, not electric cars. Car dependency is an absolute unsustainable catastrophe both environmentally and in a host of other ways even before you even consider the energy use of the actual cars!
That’s right: even if cars ran on pixie dust and unicorn farts, they’d still be unsustainable just because of how much space the roads and parking lots take up and (to a lesser extent) how much building materials they use.
@grue @ajsadauskas land use is a good part of the suburban problem. If a town with -say- 2 acre zoning required a mix of forest and crops, with residents required to work the land - forestry/farming - then OK.
But a lawn with poisons and power mowers that produces no community benefit? I think not.
@grue @ajsadauskas Eliminating cars is perhaps possible in large cities, with neighborhoods that are self-sufficient (work and shopping need to be walkable). For most of America, alas, that will never happen. #ClimateChange
80% of the US population is urban. The other 20% doesn’t matter because even if you ignore them entirely you’ve still solved 80% of the problem, and that’s plenty good enough.
@grue I’m not sure about the 80%. I suspect this includes “sub-urban” (where I live). Suburbanites usually do not have work/shopping in walking distance.
Yes, that entire 80% can be – and needs to be – made walkable. That’s because the suburbs are unsustainable ponzi schemes that were fundamentally built wrong. Anything less dense than, say, a streetcar suburb (about 10 houses/acre) is a lost cause that we need to raze and start over.
I’m not saying that because I’m making some moral judgement about suburbanites’ lifestyle, by the way. I’m saying it because, with such an excessive amount of street frontage per dwelling unit, car-dependent, large-lot suburbs simply cost more in infrastructure upkeep than they generate in taxes. Whether the town goes bankrupt trying to subsidize them or it raises the taxes to cover the costs and the homeowners get foreclosed on, all but the richest of them are financially doomed in the long run.
When I say that cities “need” to become walkable, I say it in the same sense that people “need” food and water. It isn’t a choice.
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