Replacing all gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles won’t be enough to prevent the world from overheating.
So people will have to give up their cars.
That’s the alarming conclusion of a new report from the University of California, Davis, and “a network of academics and policy experts” called the Climate and Community Project. [emphasis, links added]
The report offers an honest look at the vast personal, environmental, and economic sacrifices needed to meet the left’s net-zero climate goals.
Progressives’ dirty little secret is that everyone will have to make do with much less—fewer cars, smaller houses and yards, and a significantly lower standard of living.
Problem No. 1: Electric vehicle batteries require loads of minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel, which must be extracted from the ground like fossil fuels.
“If today’s demand for EVs is projected to 2050, the lithium requirements of the US EV market alone would require triple the amount of lithium currently produced for the entire global market,” the report notes.
Unlike fossil fuels, these minerals are mostly found in undeveloped areas that have abundant natural fauna and are often inhabited by indigenous people.
“Large-scale mining entails social and environmental harm, in many cases irreversibly damaging landscapes without the consent of affected communities,” the report says. Mining can be done safely, but in poor countries, it often isn’t.
Problem No. 2: Mining requires huge amounts of energy and water, and the process of refining minerals requires even more. According to the report, mining accounts for 4% to 7% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
Automakers have made it a priority of manufacturing electric pick-up trucks and SUVs because drivers like them, but they require much bigger batteries and more minerals.
More mining to make more EVs will increase CO2 emissions. It will also destroy tropical forests and deserts that currently suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, the report says.
Problem No. 3: “Producing EVs and building and maintaining roads, highways, and parking lots are energy- and emissions-intensive processes with high levels of embodied carbon,” the report says.
“Electrification of the US transportation system will massively increase the demand for electricity while the transition to a decarbonized electricity grid is still underway.”
The report concludes that the auto sector’s “current dominant strategy,” which involves replacing gasoline-powered vehicles with EVs without decreasing car ownership and use, “is likely incompatible” with climate activists’ goal to keep the planet from warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial times.
Instead, the report recommends government policies that promote walking, cycling, and mass transit.
Governments, the report says, could reduce “financial subsidies for private vehicles,” such as on-street and free parking. They could also impose charges on pickup trucks and SUVs (including electric ones) and build more bike lanes.
Urbanites who suspect the expansion of bike lanes in their cities is intended to force people to stop driving aren’t wrong.
But what about suburbanites who need cars to get around? Reducing “car dependency” will require “densifying low-density suburbs while allowing more people to live in existing high-density urban spaces,” the report says.
Translation: Force more people to live in shoe-box apartments in cities by making suburbs denser and less appealing.
All this may sound crazy, but it isn’t a fringe view on the left. A Natural Resources Defense Council report last year on lithium mining also concluded that the government needs “to reduce long-term dependency on single-passenger vehicles.”
The Inflation Reduction Act included billions of dollars to promote bicycling and so-called livable neighborhoods.
California’s Democratic Legislature last year even passed a bill creating a $1,000 tax credit (originally proposed at $7,500) for households that don’t own cars.
“We can invest in the future by providing financial incentives for Californians to transition from vehicles to more sustainable options,” state Sen. Anthony Portantino said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill, citing its budget cost, but he said he supported “approaches to incentivize a transition from vehicles to more sustainable transportation.”
Eliminating cars—not only gasoline-powered ones—is the left’s ultimate goal. This is why progressives have mobilized against nearly every mineral mining project in the U.S.
Read more at WSJ
This was always the goal–get us out of our cars, out of our suburban homes and into dense inner cities in small apartments. Although no indication how food and other needs will get to stores w/o fossil fuels.
Steve, you are soo correct. When I started college in 1969 I encountered the movement to do away with car ownership. When the climate fraud came along, that was a perfect vehicle for the movement to hitchhike on.