Memes

If only employers cared. It has been nice, now my employer is rolling out a arbitrary but mandatory 4 days return to office policy. In like 8 years of employment I never needed to be there that much. Whatever, 100% remote job market looks decent for me, hopefully find a better place soon.

But solving problems costs money! We need to be transferring those dollars to our wealthy donors, not spending them on public improvements!

Unfortunately mass transit that works for everyone is the enemy of vehicle manufacturers.

Live in a not so small town in Germany. I haven't had the need to have a car after I have been living for 9 years.

I commute with bike to work, take public transport when it's a farther journey.

Until I have a daughter a couple of months ago. I realize that I really need a car. :(

If I could guarantee that my job is remote forever, or have it written in my contract, I would sell my car.

You're being downvoted because you're right. I've had people argue that EVs still aren't a good alternative because they may require a bit more effort every once in a while. Like, charging for 30 minutes at a charger on a long road trip vs just gassing up. Other than that they are pretty much a drop in alternative and people still balk at them.

Then trying to get them to use public transit instead? Doesn't even matter if it's more convenient, they're stuck in their ways and will refuse to change ever.

Get out of your ruts people. Just because "this is the way things are" doesn't mean it's the best way. Ffs the amount of midwesterners who come to my city to visit and think we're being "unsafe" by using the train, just get out of your mindsets.

What's kinda funny is we already have a mode of public transit almost everybody, even those who drive everywhere, use: elevators. Buses, trains, etc. are only seen as "yucky" because most people (at least in America) don't use them and refuse to spend their tax dollars on them, leaving them to be used primarily by the poor and desperate. But when you have public transit that is used by everybody, like elevators, you find they're well-funded and well-kept, and absolutely no one will bat an eye about having to use it.

Plus there are plenty of people, like myself, who live in areas where the electricity comes from mostly renewable sources.

It’s like, yeah, but compared to an ICE car, which has all the same problems (environmental cost of manufacturing the vehicle, mining and refining the fuel, transporting it, etc) but EVs don’t actively pollute nearly as much during use, and they speak as if these are of equal environmental cost, and they’re not. Additionally, ICE vehicles need a lot more oil to operate that needs to be changed and disposed of every few thousand miles.

None of that is the real problem with electric cars.

The real problem with electric cars is that they're still cars, which means they embody the same arrogance of space as regular cars. In other words, they take up too much space -- both while driving and while parked -- physically forcing trip origins and destinations further apart and ruining the city not only for pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders, but even also for the drivers themselves.

(That last link is from the perspective of a car enthusiast, by the way.)

Also, charging from the electrical grid means EV's immediately get future improvements in CO2 usage when the grid improves its mix of power sources.

Could happen soon, has happened before in most places.

You live in a place designed around cars, that's the problem. Society worked fine without cars for a good long while. We could have adopted trains, bikes, and buses without the car and things would be going swimmingly. The idea is to fix our bad town planning so that it's reasonable to get to any destination using any mode if transportation.

Bikes are great right until you have to do large grocery shopping

That's only because we're doing it wrong.

The problem is that the real way to cut down on emissions would be to accept that not every good can be available at any time and that's a bitter pill to swallow.

We have tuna caught in South America, hauled to Thailand for canning and hauled back to the US to be sold. Turns more profit than local catches because the megacorporations can save a couple bucks on worker salaries. And that is just an example, it's not just the food industry, hauling shit to hell and back and back to hell and back is common practice.

Wanna bet?

This is my usual trip to the store so I feel your pain!