Climate Deniers Are Claiming EVs Are Bad for the Environment — Again. Here’s Why They’re Wrong. (excerpt): DeSmog

Charging electric vehicle

 "A new paper published Tuesday, November 17, by the conservative think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), raises environmental concerns with electric vehicles in what appears to be the latest attempt by organizations associated with fossil fuel funding to pump the brakes on the transportation sector’s transition away from petroleum and towards cleaner electricity.

In the U.S., the transportation sector is the largest contributor to planet-warming emissions. Climate and energy policy experts say electrifying vehicles is necessary to mitigate these emissions.

In fact, scientists recently warned that if the country has any hope of reaching the Paris climate targets of limiting warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), 90 percent of all light-duty cars on the road must be electric by 2050.

But the Competitive Enterprise Institute — a longtime disseminator of disinformation on climate science and supported by petroleum funding sources including the oil giant ExxonMobil and petrochemical billionaire Koch foundations — dismisses this imperative and instead tries to portray electrified transport as environmentally problematic in a paper titled, “Would More Electric Vehicles Be Good for the Environment?”

“This is a grab bag of old and misleading claims about EVs [electric

vehicles],” said David Reichmuth, a senior engineer in the clean transportation program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “If you want to answer this question [posed by the report’s title], you have to also look at the question of what are the impacts of the current gasoline and diesel transport system, and this report just ignores that.”.."

See complete DeSmog article
By Dana Drugmand • Tuesday, November 17

Related:   Trump gutted environmental protections. How quickly can Biden restore them? (excerpt): GRIST

New research puts myth to bed: EVs will lower emissions: The DriveIn

New research has busted the myths around electric vehicles and emissions – confirming that in virtually every part of the world, including still coal-dominated Australia, switching to an electric vehicle will lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

The study, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, confirmed that in 95 per cent of the world, switching to an electric vehicle from a petrol equivalent would lead to an overall reduction in greenhouse emissions, even when the full life-cycle of a vehicle is taken into account.

There has been some conjecture over the emissions savings that could be achieved by a switch to an electric vehicle, with myths being pushed by the likes of climate contrarion Bjorn Lomborg in the Murdoch media that electric vehicles have no environmental benefits as they still may still source their electricity from fossil fuel power stations.

But the study, led by researchers from Radboud University in the Netherlands, working with the universities of Exeter and Cambridge, found that electric vehicles did indeed lead to lower emissions, even in regions where a large portion of electricity generation is sourced from fossil fuels.

Read more in the original article

Hello From the Year 2050. We Avoided the Worst of Climate Change — But Everything Is Different: NYT

Let’s imagine for a moment that we’ve reached the middle of the century. It’s 2050, and we have a moment to reflect—the climate fight remains the consuming battle of our age, but its most intense phase may be in our rearview mirror. And so we can look back to see how we might have managed to dramatically change our society and economy. We had no other choice.
There was a point after 2020 when we began to collectively realize a few basic things.

One, we weren’t getting out of this unscathed. Climate change, even in its early stages, had begun to hurt: watching a California city literally called Paradise turn into hell inside of two hours made it clear that all Americans were at risk. When you breathe wildfire smoke half the summer in your Silicon Valley fortress, or struggle to find insurance for your Florida beach house, doubt creeps in even for those who imagined they were immune.

Two, there were actually some solutions. By 2020, renewable

energy was the cheapest way to generate electricity around the planet—in fact, the cheapest way there ever had been. The engineers had done their job, taking sun and wind from quirky backyard DIY projects to cutting-edge technology. Batteries had plummeted down the same cost curve as renewable energy, so the fact that the sun went down at night no longer mattered quite so much—you could store its rays to use later.

And the third realization? People began to understand that the biggest reason we weren’t making full, fast use of these new technologies was the political power of the fossil-fuel industry. 
Investigative journalists had exposed its three-decade campaign of denial and disinformation, and attorneys general and plaintiffs’ lawyers were beginning to pick them apart. And just in time.

Read the NYT article 

See also: 

Blame for Extinction Spreads to Methane Gas: NYT

 

#jailclimatecriminals  #suefossilcorpsdirectors

Towing a caravan with an electric car – can it be done? - THE DRIVEN

Towing with an electric vehicle

"So, we have bought a Kona Electric and are towing with it.
Hyundai couldn’t bring themselves to fit a towbar for us so we got an off-the-shelf one from an Australian manufacturer (the ones made for the petrol model fit perfectly).

The tow bar is rated for 1.3 tonnes but we only intend to use it for trailers up to 500kg.

We have considered the safety, warranty and legal issues and feel comfortable that there are negligible risks involved. Of course we take precautions and drive carefully when we are towing as anyone should.

The car is just brilliant by the way, and is doing a wonderful job of towing whenever we need to."

Read the RenewEconomy article

Australian Coalition government signs off with a budget tailored for climate denial: Renew Economy

"The federal Coalition government has delivered its last budget before the May poll, and pretty much finished the way it started in government nearly six years ago: Long term climate and clean energy policies and technologies are ignored, and the focus is on trinkets and handouts.

Don’t worry about climate, or even any other “assets” and themes that have long-term value, such as education and research, seems to be the message. Instead:Look, money! 

And it’s mostly awarded to people who probably don’t need it.

The cynicism is revealed in both the climate and the energy

Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg

announcements. In climate, the Coalition appears to have given up all pretence that it is taking its own mediocre policies seriously."

Read Renew Economy article


See also: 

Australia’s plunging wind, solar, storage costs stun fossil fuel industry: Renew Economy

 

 

#australia #climate criminals  #greenwashing  #electric vehicles  #fossil fuel subsidies  #climate action