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"If you're really concerned about this you should campaign for us all to stop driving, that will really move the needle." I do that, too, to the best of my abi
by SwellJoe 10y ago
"If you're really concerned about this you should campaign for us all to stop driving, that will really move the needle."
I do that, too, to the best of my ability. And, whenever given the chance I argue for self-driving cars, too. Yes, the entire auto industry (and our addiction to it as a society) is terrible.
But, my point is that even the mild environmental and health regulations we have were defeated for years for VW profits, all while they advertised "clean diesel" and went head to head in the market with technologies that are actually superior and safer (unless those companies are cheating, too), claiming to be better than them by using falsified data.
My point is really that when a company in an industry that already kills on an unprecedented scale decides to willfully harm even more because they'll profit, there should be truly dire consequences. BP is another great example of a company that consistently made decisions that knowingly endangered entire communities over a long period of time. Their only regret seems to be getting caught.
- jacquesm 10y agoTransportation is a fact of life, no amount of wishing is going to make it go away and you'd not be able to make a world without it work at the level that we're at currently. Of course we can do better, but that's likely going to be marginal rather than some kind of revolutionary change. VW messed up, sure. I've been pretty explicit about my criticism of what they've done, and I would happily see Winterkorn serve jailtime (fat chance of that ever happening). But I think you are magnifying the damage done way out of proportion. FWIW, 15B for 59 premature deaths is a very large premium compared to what we, the western nations typically think a life in some Oil rich country is worth, and those people too are indirect victims of our transportation. Proportionality is what it is all about and I really miss that element in your comments here.