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electric vehicles
Hey America, the Fossil Fuel Industry Is Trying to Tell You What to Do
It’s time for the climate movement to speak to the nation’s inner teenager and persuade it that renewable energy is the true energy of freedom.
Nov 18, 2024
Since so much that is bizarre is currently being normalized (Matt Gaetz, in an effort to get out of Congress before it could publish its report on his sex scandals, is taking a new job as… attorney general) let me just say that the strangest thing of all remains in plain view. The incoming president of the richest country on Earth believes climate change—the deepest challenge that our species has faced—is a hoax.
This obviously has endless policy implications, which we’ll spend the next four years working through—but the simple fact is what’s so amazing. Every single one of the structures we’ve built over the centuries to help us understand the world, from the National Academy of Science to the land-grant universities with their huge labs, to NASA with its satellites keeping an eye on planet Earth, have told us the same thing: Fairly simple physics means that burning fossil fuel is warming the Earth, a warming now painfully confirmed in rainfall totals, melting ice, rising sea level, and deadly heatwaves. The entire world is plunging into an inferno.
And yet the person at the putative head of that entire pyramid of reason and evidence, the person with instant access to any scientist on Earth, and the person with the power to do the most to prevent it, simply rejects it. Jaded as we are, that should stun us.
Oil companies are a scam, pushing antiquated technology to keep you hooked. They don’t care if you breathe dirty air as long as it makes them money.
It’s not news, of course. President-elect Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords last time around, and he will soon do so again. He’s busy finding allies—the first foreign leader to visit Mar-a-Lago post election was Argentina’s Javier Milei, a libertarian beloved by far-right leaders around the world, who joined Trump in doing the YMCA dance (the picture of authoritarian leaders bouncing to a gay anthem is one of the few saving graces of the moment). Milei announced that he too thought climate change was a “socialist lie” and hinted that Argentina too would soon be leaving the Paris pact. Even the host of the current global climate talks, Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev (named as “Corruption’s Person of the Year” in 2012 by a global NGO) used his opening address last week to explain that fossil fuels were “a gift from the god.” (Climate activists, an unpopular species in Azerbaijan, were prevented from chanting at the global talks, so they hummed)
Obviously the underlying motive for all of this is the wealth and power associated with fossil fuels. (The country of Fossil Fuel Lobbyists sent more representatives to the climate talks than almost any other). Trump on Friday appointed a fracking executive, Christopher Wright, as his new energy secretary, surprising absolutely no one. Wright of course rejects the idea that there is a climate crisis, that we need an energy transition, or that there is any such thing as clean energy.
But he goes further, and in a way that I think helps illuminate how the right gets away with its denial. He tweeted recently that following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the “left” needed a new “north star.”
Enter climate change. The solution to top-down control’s existential challenge came in the form of problem. The climate “problem” fit the bill perfectly. It was global and centered on the two core industries of society, energy and agriculture. It was crowned “existential” by alarmist activists, and left-of-center politicians fell in line.
And here, for me, is the key part. Wright says that the core view of the left is that
those uneducated rubes (the citizenry) surely can’t be left free to exercise their own preferences through purchasing and employment decisions.
I have no idea how Argentine politics works, and I imagine that Azerbaijani politics mainly involves staying on the right side of Mr. Corruption, but I get American politics well enough to recognize the power of Wright’s worldview. There’s always been in our character a strain of “You’re Not the Boss of Me.” (Indeed, I spent my boyhood giving tours of Lexington Green where this attitude had its first real expression). But for much of my life it was a fairly fringe part of our discourse: Long before RFK Jr, for instance, there were oddball right-wing opponents of fluoride in our water supply, or of making motorcyclists wear helmets.
But most of us aren’t motorcyclists interested in traumatic brain injury, nor conspiracy theorists eager to increase our dental bills. So things like that stayed on the fringe—the changes demanded by, say, seatbelts were so small and so obviously beneficial that we just got used to them, and there was no real cost to any industry big enough to matter.
Climate change was a different matter. Taking it seriously would require enormous change from one group of people—those who made fortunes in coal and oil and gas. (Wright’s aptly-named Liberty Energy fracks one-fifth of the onshore wells in America). So the mere fact that science has demonstrated we’re wrecking the Earth with fossil fuel couldn’t be allowed to dictate policy—something that became more likely as the alternatives became cheaper and easier.
The easiest way to marshal opposition was to lean on this tired trope: Someone who thought you were a ‘rube’ was trying to tell you what to do. Trump, of course, goes on repeated diatribes about people being forced to use windpower and then being unable to watch tv because the breeze has dropped, or forced to buy an electric car that only runs when the sun has shining. Though no one has ever proposed banning gas stoves, the mere fact that scientists were pointing out its dangers to the lungs of children was enough to turn on the machine. The Texas representative Ronny Jackson tweeted, with his usual restraint:
I'll NEVER give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!
and his Senate colleague Ted Cruz chimed in
The Biden administration is waging a multifaceted attack on popular appliances.
This kind of ‘thinking’ was supercharged by Covid-19—instead of appreciating the difficulties posed by a novel virus (or remembering the piles of dead bodies in the early months), lots of Americans pouted. Someone was telling them not to do something (eat in a crowded restaurant) or to do something (cover their mouths). So they rebelled; absent that anger, I doubt a January 6 could have happened.
I think this strain in our national character is wrongheaded—the danger of authoritarianism in America has always come from the right, not the left, and never more so than now. I devoutly wish that affection for one’s neighbors and a love of the generations that will come after us would persuade us to make the not-very-hard changes required of us. But I don’t think those reasons will be sufficient—they’re not strong enough to override the constant chatter about “mandates” pressed by the fossil fuel industry and its media and political harem.
So we have to broaden the appeal of the things that could save us. In the next few years the main task of the environmental movement in America (because so many other options are foreclosed) is going to involve pushing for a rapid transition to clean and renewable energy. We’re going to have to persuade people that solar and wind energy, and the devices that go with it, are what we want. And it won’t do sufficient good to argue on environmental grounds—“you’re not the boss of me” is a teenager’s argument, and teenagers are focused on themselves. So we better be too.
Here’s some of the arguments, then, that we can spend more time on. (And this is not theoretical—we’ll be rolling out the plans to make these arguments scale, as movements adjust to the new political reality).
Solar power is cheaper. (and those who oppose it know so, and are conspiring to make sure you keep paying them for energy when the sun provides it for free)
It’s more reliable. (and you can plug your EV to your house after a hurricane and run everything for a week).
It’s the ultimate liberty to have your own powerplant on your roof.
It’s far better to have a wind farm in your county than to rely on Saudi Arabia (or Chris Wright).
An electric car goes zero to 60 far faster than your antiquated gas model, and it costs half as much to run. (Rich guys in their Teslas are laughing at you)
Because it has fewer moving parts, you don’t have to visit your mechanic nearly as often. You can drive right by the gas station.
Oil companies are a scam, pushing antiquated technology to keep you hooked. They don’t care if you breathe dirty air as long as it makes them money.
Their shareholders are getting rich while you pay for repairing roads and bridges everytime there’s a new climate disaster.
We’ve already reached the percentage of the population that cares deeply about carbon emissions, and we obviously need more. We need to understand the darker sides of the American brain as well as the lighter ones, and we need to play to them.
So remember: If you have some solar panels and a heat pump and an EV, you’re the boss of you. Pass it on.
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Amnesty Report Reveals 'Alarming' Human Rights Abuses in Extraction of EV Minerals
"As demand for electric vehicles increases, manufacturers must ensure people's human rights are respected."
Oct 15, 2024
A transition away from the fossil fuels that have powered vehicles across the globe for decades, worsening the climate emergency, is sorely needed—but an analysis out Tuesday warns that companies spearheading the shift toward electric vehicles must do so while obeying internationally recognized human rights principles, and exposes how the firms have exploited communities in pursuit of minerals for EV batteries.
In a new report, Recharge for Rights, Amnesty International ranked the human rights records of 13 major EV manufacturers, including China-based BYD, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, and Mitsubishi, on a scale of 1-90.
None of the companies scored higher than 51, with Amnesty researchers identifying the companies' practices of forced evictions to make way for mining, subjecting workers to dangerous conditions, violating Indigenous peoples' rights, and exposing communities to environmental harm.
"While some progress was made, across the board, the scores were a massive disappointment," said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty.
The companies have all stepped up mining development efforts as the International Energy Agency has said demand for minerals used in EV batteries—including cobalt, lithium, nickel, and copper—is expected to increase ninefold between 2024-50. Mineral industry analysts say more than 350 new mines will need to be opened by 2035 to meet demand.
But in the rush to extract the minerals, Callamard said, the companies are "putting immense pressures on mining-affected communities."
"The human rights abuses tied to the extraction of energy transition minerals are alarming and pervasive and the industry's response is sorely lacking," she said. "As demand for electric vehicles increases, manufacturers must ensure people's human rights are respected."
Previous research by Amnesty has found that "industrial cobalt is linked to forced evictions in the Democratic Republic of Congo," said Callamard. "Car companies need to use their massive leverage as global minerals buyers to influence upstream mining companies and smelters to mitigate these human rights risks."
The report ranked companies on whether they have publicly available human rights policies, monitor human rights due diligence, and remediate human rights grievances.
BYD, the world's second-largest EV manufacturer, performed the worst on the group's scorecard, with 11 out of 90. Along with Hyundai and Mitsubishi, also low performers, the company published little to no information about its human rights due diligence.
"None of these three multinationals published information demonstrating that they are trying to understand the human rights impacts of their battery metal sourcing," said Amnesty. "None of the three companies reported mapping these supply chains, nor demonstrated that they had identified specific risks."
Mercedes-Benz was the highest performing company with 51 out of 90, indicating "a moderate demonstration of alignment with international standards."
Amnesty called on companies to implement human rights due diligence processes "to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address adverse human rights impacts that they may cause, contribute to, or be directly linked to through their operations, products, or services."
All carmakers must bring their due diligence efforts "in line with international human rights standards" as outlined in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, said Callamard. "We are also calling on governments to strengthen their own human rights due diligence regulation over the companies incorporated on their territories or their exports and import licenses."
Companies and the governments that import and export their goods must acknowledge that "human rights isn't just a fluff phrase, but an issue they take seriously," added Callamard. "It's time to shift gears and ensure electric vehicles don't leave behind a legacy of human rights abuses—instead, the industry must drive a just energy future that leaves no one behind."
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'This Is Historic': Electric Vehicles Now Outnumber Petrol-Powered Cars in Norway
Last month, 94% of new vehicles sold in the oil-producing nation were electric.
Sep 17, 2024
In what's believed to be a global milestone, electric vehicles now outnumber gasoline-fueled automobiles on Norway's roads, as the overwhelming bulk of new cars sold in recent months have been battery-powered.
Norway's Road Information Council (OFV) said Tuesday that electric vehicles (EVs) made up 754,303, or 26.6%, of the 2.8 million passenger automobiles registered in the Nordic nation. That's slightly more than the 753,905 registered gasoline-powered vehicles, but far fewer than the 999,715 diesel-burning ones.
Last month, a record 94.3% of all new vehicles sold in Norway were EVs, with Tesla's Model Y as the top seller.
"This is historic. A milestone few saw coming 10 years ago," said OFV director Øyvind Solberg Thorsen. "The electrification of the passenger car fleet is keeping a high pace, and Norway is making rapid strides towards becoming the first country in the world with a passenger car fleet dominated by electric cars."
"But it will take some time before we get there, because there are still 1 million registered passenger cars with diesel engines in the country," Thorsen noted. "The pace we are seeing in the replacement of the passenger car fleet now may indicate that in 2026 we will also have more electric cars than diesel cars."
According to OFV, there could be as many as 3.1 million EVs registered in Norway by the end of the decade.
"The rate of change in the passenger car units is difficult to predict," Thorsen cautioned. "Economic fluctuations in relation to car taxes, prices, interest rates, and other factors affect new car sales—both for private individuals and companies. And tax changes have a big impact on which cars we choose."
Norway—which is ironically Europe's second-largest oil producer—incentivizes EV purchases with generous tax rebates.
In stark contrast with Norway, electric car sales have been lagging in most of the rest of Europe, where EVs make up just 12.3% of new cars sold, according toThe Guardian.
Experts say that in order for countries to fulfill their obligations under the Paris climate agreement, zero-emission vehicles—which include EVs and hydrogen-powered automobiles—must account for around 40% of the global car and light truck fleet by 2030.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and MIT Energy Initiative forecast in 2021 that the global EV fleet will grow from just over 10 million to 95-105 million by 2030, and 585-823 million by 2050.
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