Mankind is in the midst of a climate crisis. The planet is warming at an alarmingly fast rate. In fact, the last time the earth warmed this fast was over 60 million years ago. The effects of the changing climate will be devastating to the planet. Species extinction has increased in the past century, and 8% of those extinctions can be attributed to climate change, that is not even mentioning the 150,000 deaths that are attributed to the changing climate. What has been man kinds answer to such a pressing problem…

 

These

Electric cars.

 

Now I am not saying that electric cars are all that has been done to fight climate change, but it certainly one of the most popularized ways that people have been fighting back. Ok? What’s the big deal at least someone is doing something right? Not exactly. I think that the proliferation of electric cars a good alternative to gas-powered vehicles is good for a number of reasons. For example, electricity is much more efficient than gas so more energy actually goes to the engine rather than being wasted. My problem with EV’s is twofold. First electric cars although better for the environment when on the road still cause a lot of pollution when being made. 

As the graphic from CO2 Masters Solutions Partnership says, making a Tesla actually has 68% higher emissions than making a gas-powered car. Many people are unaware of the environmental impact of making cars (electric and gas-powered). They think that buying a new electric vehicle is a good deed in and of its self. Whereas if people followed the most basic principle of conservation, reduce reuse recycle the planet would actually be better off. My second big issue with electric vehicles is that although electricity is a more efficient power source than petrol as I mentioned earlier, the electricity of electric cars has to come from somewhere. Often times some of the power used to fuel an electric vehicle can come from the burning of fossil fuels. In summation, my main problem with the recent proliferation and praise of electric cars is that: they serve mainly as a way for quasi-woke half-hearted environmentalist to assuage the guilt that the feel from driving a gas care rather than making a meaningful impact in slowing the rate the climate is warming at. I would rather people feel bad about doing the wrong thing than feel good about doing a slightly better thing because at least if they still feel bad they might change some of their other actions.