Today's front page had a piece on what increasingly looks like something of a climate boondoggle. Wildfires, whose intensity, frequency, and probability are all increased by our greenhouse gas emissions, are burning up forests that had been, or could in future be, devoted to carbon storage.
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| Today on false allure of offsets |
Clearly, our climate interventions need more primarily to target emissions, and to keep after-emission sequestration or mitigation in more secondary and supporting roles. But that's been a hard sell.
Another major notion about climate is that by simply converting our gas cars to electric cars, we don't have to change a thing.
A week ago the Sunday paper had a promo boosting that EV mania.
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| A week ago Sunday paper on EV mania |
The next day the paper had a front page piece on tire dust and salmon mortality.
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| A week ago Monday on car lethality to salmon |
In the past month Washington Post has had pieces on mining for batteries and other parts.
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| Washington Post on metals mining (August) |
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| Washington Post on copper mining (July) |
Without breaking our autoist habits, simply converting the fleet to EVs maintains old hazards and introduces new hazards. Cars are bad for us, and we need to shift the culture of autoism so we no longer valorize the gratuitous drive.
A good place to start a rethink might be a more critical stance on new drive-thrus, which are a very clear inducement to new driving trips. Saturday there was a story trumpeting "an Oregon first," like it was some great new thing.
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| This month (L) and a year ago (R) |
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| This is the more truthful image: Cause and effect |
2 comments:
The SAMTD Board work session on August 10th also had a discussion/presentation on the GHG Emissions inventory work being done as part of SAMTD's Climate Action Plan.
Thanks. That merits a post!
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