SwingingTheLamp @ SwingingTheLamp @midwest.social

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2 yr. ago

EVs don't put out tailpipe emissions while in operation, sure, but that's an highly reductive view of the system. The latest numbers I've found show that an EV car has about 30% of the total lifecycle CO₂ emissions as an ICE vehicle. That's production, operation, maintenance, and disposal. A lot better, so if we drastically cut back on the number of vehicle miles traveled, that'd be a win. But that's not what's happening. Instead, the profusion of cheap EVs in China means that more people can afford them, there will be more vehicles on the road, we double down on automobile infrastructure and lifestyles, and the environment, human health, and long-term sustainability will take a hit. It's the Jevons Paradox, which says that if we find a way to use a resource more efficiently, we use more of it.

What's more, the transition to EVs won't even stop the CO₂ emissions. The emissions will just come from a new source. World-wide, we have a fully-functioning fossil fuel extraction industry. Petrochemicals are the energy and raw material input for so many industrial processes (including the production of EVs), it's not going to shut down. If we stop using it for fuel in our vehicles, the law of supply and demand means it'll get cheaper for other uses, which will ramp up. Indeed, our total global CO₂ emissions keep rising.

What's necessary is to re-design our societal systems to solve a bunch of problems, like the ecological catastrophe of habitat destruction and collapsing insect and bird populations, or the looming fresh water shortages, which don't get much press because of the climate change issue. Drastically reducing the number of vehicle miles traveled to 10% of the current level would have a much greater impact, even if all of those miles were all done in ICE vehicles, compared to maintaining the current VMT but doing them in EVs. That's why I don't agree that EVs are necessary to lower CO₂ emissions from ICE vehicles. It would be really great if we drastically reduced VMT, and did those miles in EVs, but that's not at all what's happening.

(I've ignored the last-mile logistics issue because it's small potatoes by comparison.)

It's a multi-generational problem, so we should start fixing it now. Why is it going to be easier to solve 30-50 years from now? Why should we wait until we've transitioned to EVs to start the process? What is it about EVs is going to make that easier?

Yeah, all those losers born in Soweto in 1971 who haven't used their enormous wealth to fund a bunch of different business ventures. What are they even doing?

No, I really don't agree. Like, at all. The problem is largely that geometry of vehicles creates those highly-destructive, resource-intensive, low-density population areas, and that's the problem that we need to address. In that respect, EVs are just like any other vehicle. Same streets, same highways, same parking lots, same garages, same bi-weekly grocery runs to the store 5 miles away. We can start to address those problems (zoning, building codes, environmental regulations, land-use, tax structures, and such) now, and it won't be any easier after 20 years of further automobile-oriented development while we transition the fleet to EVs. It'll just be 20 years more entrenched. Yeah, EVs help somewhat, but the way we're approaching them now, they're like treating 10% of your cancer.

(I take that back if the EVs we're talking about here are e-bikes and micromobility devices.)

I know that tongue-in-cheek snark can be difficult to detect for many people, but consider the context here: I responded to somebody who said that success is 75% luck. There is no amount of hustle that would let a person become a railroad mogul, an oil baron, an automotive pioneer, a sugar plantation owner, or a privateer today. Being born into the correct historical era to become one of those things is part of that luck. And my secondary implication is mocking the idea that many of those people achieved their success by working hard, or even working at all.

No. As noted, it's a rivet. It was originally a straight piece of metal rod with a cap (visible in the top image) at one end, inserted into the joint, then the other end deformed with a rivet tool to create a lip on the end (lower image) so it stays in place.

To remove it, use a drill bit about the same diameter as the rivet shaft, and drill it out from the end in the lower image. You usually only have to drill less than a millimeter before the lip breaks free, and you can pull out the rest of the rivet. The trick here is that the rivet is probably hardened steel, that means it'll take a carbide drill bit, and some time.

This is obviously a destructive procedure for the rivet, and then you need special tools to put in another. It might be possible to replace with a screw, but it won't be quite the same.

You read the part about the dog's skull, and well, you hope that the blenderizing happens slowly.

Freaky! For the most part, name a movie, any movie, and I haven't seen it. But I'm one of the few people who saw Space Truckers in a theater. Stuart Gordon went to school here, so he had screening of the film at the student union, followed by a Q&A session, back in '96.

Yes, it was a hoot! Gordon was a founder of an experimental theater company here which has the improv mentality of treating goofy ideas seriously and just going with them. That sensibility shows through in the movie, for sure.

Best President since Jimmy Carter is a low, low bar. We forget that Carter was a neo-liberal who threw labor under the bus. Because the Presidents since have been so right-wing, he looks like a leftist in the rear view. And throwing the working classes under the bus is one of the major reasons we're here now.

WDYM? I can be a railroad mogul one day, or an oil baron, an automotive entrepreneur, a sugar plantation owner, or even a privateer, if I hustle hard enough, right?

"Souvenirs" sometimes being a polite way to say "body parts," which were not always removed after death.

Okay, no Linux, no Star Trek. Cool cool. But you're a femboy furry, right?

Children and sex. Recently on local social media, there was a discussion on our topless laws. Of course, there were the predictable comments about women not going topless where children might see.

Well, why not, Karen? It's utterly ridiculous when you consider what breasts are for, and what children are meant to do with them. Yes, it's true the children shouldn't be engaging in sex acts, and the details of adult sexual behavior should be kept from them, since they're not equipped to understand, e.g. BDSM and power play, yet. But if kids see a pair of boobs, if kids see naked people, or even if kids know the basic functions of body parts, they'll be fine. Lots of kids throughout human history lived in small dwellings and heard, or even saw, parents and other members of their community having sex, and they all survived the experience.

Communicable disease? Now there's something that we should be protecting children from...

Can we start delivering those 2,000lb. bombs that the U.S. gives to Israel one by one, to Netanyahu's house, by airmail?

Fascinating how the subtext is always that we should feel comforted because a mass-casualty event that's a normal part of the system that kills and injuries people every day isn't terrorism.

"Oh, that's just the machine crushing orphans. It's supposed to be doing that."

All logic breaks down at the grocery store.

One of life's profound truths!

I have a cargo van. It's impossible to see any traffic coming from the passenger's side when backing up, and there's a big blind spot even on the driver's side. It's a larger vehicle, and it's much easier to maneuver into tight spaces in reverse. (It's why we learn to parallel park in reverse. Try it in forward once, and see.) Also, backing into a parking spot can be accomplished with just a steady gaze at one of the wing mirrors. (Driver's or passenger's side depends on which way you're turning.)

That last point will also be important someday when I'm older and don't have as much flexibility to turn and look backwards. (I was appalled once at a city transportation committee discussion about back-in parking stalls when a city alderperson said that he doesn't look behind his car when backing out, because he can't twist his body. If you can't drive safely, you shouldn't be driving!)

Best that I can think of would be to create an endowed institute of political scientists, psychologists, neuroscientists, linguists, et cetera, dedicated to studying and developing ways to counter right-wing populism, and de-program people who fall under its sway.

I used to think that as well. But what if it turned out that over-showering was actually the thing that makes you stinky?

I'm picturing testicles wearing a cowboy hat.