> Which is a good example, because that's literally how you get people out of a hole. You dig your self out -- you stop digging down, and start digging at a 45

> Which is a good example, because that's literally how you get people out of a hole. You dig your self out -- you stop digging down, and start digging at a 45 degree angle upwards, so you and everyone behind you can safely walk out of that hole. If you do this in sand, you risk having the structure of the hole collapse around you, trapping you. Either way, we're both taking what is meant to be an idiom a bit too literally. > That's what we need people to be doing -- continue consuming, but sideways instead of downwards, so their consumption helps fix the problem. > Then you should be thrilled with what Tesla (and all EVs) are doing. They are eliminating some major externalities. They're shifting externalities. Mining lithium and raw materials for cars are both environmentally devastating and happen in regions with little to no environmental regulation. Manufacturing is both energy intensive and puts out pollution. I'm sure you're familiar with the conclusion reached by several analyses in which a used vehicle with an ICE will result in less net CO2 output than buying a new electric vehicle. Many places in the US and China, where Tesla's vehicles are popular, generate electricity from burning coal. We have not come up with a solution that solves the problem of supplying energy to meet the grid's baseline demand with renewable energy. > In NYC, with the density they have, that's probably easily possible. In Michigan, we're nowhere near that density today, and none of us has the $200k-per-person cash necessary today to change that. I agree, that is a problem. But again, consuming new electric vehicles instead of used ICE vehicles will dig us deeper into the proverbial CO2 hole.