7 ms·

> ...dragging 2 tons of car along with you just to go get groceries is a little bit like paying $5 for single day of cable TV even though all you watched that d

> ...dragging 2 tons of car along with you just to go get groceries is a little bit like paying $5 for single day of cable TV even though all you watched that day was two minutes of the weather channel... If only humanity would start to realize this, that would alone help to save us from the coming climate catastrophe. By the way the article does a nice job at describing why this is so hard for hundreds of millions of people, especially without help from the government in the form of nudging and infrastructure development.

bambax 7y ago
This is a big reason why I moved to an electric bike. Being alone in a car made to transport 5 to 7 people, moving 2 tons of metal just to drive a person weighting maybe 80 kg, is insane. Anytime somebody is alone on a flight it makes the front page of Reddit. Yet the same thing in a car feels completely normal (it is "normal" in the sense that it represents maybe 90% of all car trips; but it should be very shocking).
- geff82 7y ago
  At least in Europe, because of the rather restricted parking space, it makes a lot of sense to really think about the needs. I use a small car to drive to work in the city which will soon be replaced by an even smaller electric car, because usually it is only me and one daughter in it. My wife, in comparison, has a 7-seater Minivan. Its outside dimensions are still smaller than a BMW 3-Series (except height) which is used every day with at least 4 seats filled, often 5 or 6. Due to its relative compactedness, it still fits into all parking spaces. We really gave a lot of thought into which cars we have. There was the initial impulse to spend good money on an SUV, too. But then, after rational thinking, we did not take that path.
- gombosg 7y ago
  I totally agree and an electric bike (even a small motorbike) is a great choice for daily commutes. I really hope that car ownership will decline once we'll have usable self-driving technology with shared fleets.
  - pif 7y ago
    > an electric bike (even a small motorbike) is a great choice for daily commutes. As soon as a motorbike will be invented that can run on snowy roads, I'll agree with you.
    - vvillena 7y ago
      The article talks about trying to fulfill all requisites for all the vehicle buyers. A bike indeed a fast, safe commute vehicle in many cases. On snow conditions, a lightweight vehicle with winter tires will be better than anything else. In that case, forget the bike!
      - pif 7y ago
        > In that case, forget the bike! That's exactly my point. I thought several times to switch to a motorbike in order to avoid the hassle of traffic, but in the end I decided to stick to car: in normal days, traffic is allievated enough by all the other lovely guys who decide to ride their (motor)bikes; on the worst days (snow), I'd be in a car anyway. I see no point in buying a motorbike just to avoid traffic if it gets useless exactly when I'd need it most!
        bambax 7y ago
        A motorbike is expensive; an electric bike, depending on how you acquire it, isn't, and therefore you can have one in addition to a car. I built mine from a regular bike and a Chinese Bafang motor, and the cost was around €800 (excluding the bike -- an additional €350 if you need to buy one new).
    - Damogran6 7y ago
      Idon't have a horse in this fight, but that's a logical fallacy. For the times the roads are snowy -find-another-method-.
leetcrew 7y ago
I get that it's wasteful, but I'm not going to bike 20 miles each way to commute to work. edit to be less snarky: I live in a city, so in theory there should be a plethora of sustainable transportation I could take to work. but there just aren't many software jobs in my city, so I have to commute to an exurb. I could move closer to work, but then I would be even farther away from my family (which is important to me). we need more than just an infrastructure upgrade to make this work.
- gombosg 7y ago
  Yes. You'd (we'd) need better infrastructure (20 miles is doable via train or something) and more remote work. That's also something that will be more widespread in the coming years. Plus we need more environmental-conscious lifestyle choices from people. Where one lives is also a lifestyle choice, not an invariant. The only reason today's cities exists the way they are (huge suburbs, lots of commuting) is because they are based on car transportation, unfortunately this is pretty hard to change. See this for a historical overview: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/08/commute-time-city-size-transportation-urban-planning-history/597055/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/08/commute-time-...
wink 7y ago
I'm one of the most adamant proponents of using a bike... but groceries shopping is kind of the worst example in my opinion? I usually have a relatively roomy bag with me that fits a lot of stuff when I go on a weekend trip but falls completely short when buying groceries. Same for other backpacks I own. Or it could stain the bag. Everything is huge and bulky, especially drinks and cans or even just vegetables for mor than one perseon. Do I really need 2 baskets or 2 extra panniers?
tjr225 7y ago
I'm a huge bike advocate. I also have the luxury of working from home, but when I didn't, I took a combination of bike/train to work. But- I'm having a kid and I have two huge mutts that I adopted. My wife and I like to go camping and hiking with our dogs. So, that means my wife and I need a car and we need a big one. But we have been essentially a single car family for around 4 or 5 years or so. I think a more realistic target would be families moving down to a single car lifestyle. It isn't a huge adjustment but - given the amount of single occupant vehicles you'll see on a given day on the highway - it might take a lot of convincing to get people to carpool.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  > I'm having a kid and I have two huge mutts that I adopted. My wife and I like to go camping and hiking with our dogs So basically, you're not willing to modify your lifestyle. You don't need those dogs, and there's no reason to go camping or hiking. It's hard to take the 'climate crisis' thing seriously if nobody actually treats it like an actual crisis.
  - tjr225 7y ago
    Please- how is this even remotely constructive at all? Do you expect us to solve the climate crisis by suggesting that nobody ever do anything at all? I'm surprised you stopped short and didn't criticize our choice to have a child. Also, if you even spent a moment thinking before you made that comment you'd realize that if my wife and I didn't adopt these two dogs, someone else would have. They were born and then given to a shelter by owners who didn't want them.
mattmaroon 7y ago
It isn’t that humans don’t realize it. Is that we don’t care. For most people in most places not having a car is just tremendously inconvenient. Government can’t make it convenient enough to make too big a dent. 45% of New Yorkers still own cars, compared to 85 nationally. The cost of achieving similar rates in places less densely populated is prohibitive relative to better solutions, and even if you did accomplish it you’re still only pulling 40ish percent of cars off the road. We aren’t going to solve the problem by people realizing driving is bad for the environment, they already know. We’re going to solve it by making driving much less bad for the environment. Electric cars that last forever and renewable energy is clearly the solution, and that government can help with.
- jedrek 7y ago
  Oh, I didn't realize all people are Americans.
  - mattmaroon 7y ago
    That’s a dumb comment. Nothing in there is unique to America.
    - d3ckard 7y ago
      US is very unique, mostly due to on average very low population density, which makes infrastructure very expensive per person. I feel like in Europe there is already a consensus that cars are most useful in countryside areas. The more the population density rises, the more car becomes a problem and not a solution.

bambax 7y ago

This is a big reason why I moved to an electric bike. Being alone in a car made to transport 5 to 7 people, moving 2 tons of metal just to drive a person weighting maybe 80 kg, is insane. Anytime somebody is alone on a flight it makes the front page of Reddit. Yet the same thing in a car feels completely normal (it is "normal" in the sense that it represents maybe 90% of all car trips; but it should be very shocking).

geff82 7y ago
At least in Europe, because of the rather restricted parking space, it makes a lot of sense to really think about the needs. I use a small car to drive to work in the city which will soon be replaced by an even smaller electric car, because usually it is only me and one daughter in it. My wife, in comparison, has a 7-seater Minivan. Its outside dimensions are still smaller than a BMW 3-Series (except height) which is used every day with at least 4 seats filled, often 5 or 6. Due to its relative compactedness, it still fits into all parking spaces. We really gave a lot of thought into which cars we have. There was the initial impulse to spend good money on an SUV, too. But then, after rational thinking, we did not take that path.
gombosg 7y ago
I totally agree and an electric bike (even a small motorbike) is a great choice for daily commutes. I really hope that car ownership will decline once we'll have usable self-driving technology with shared fleets.
- pif 7y ago
  > an electric bike (even a small motorbike) is a great choice for daily commutes. As soon as a motorbike will be invented that can run on snowy roads, I'll agree with you.
  - vvillena 7y ago
    The article talks about trying to fulfill all requisites for all the vehicle buyers. A bike indeed a fast, safe commute vehicle in many cases. On snow conditions, a lightweight vehicle with winter tires will be better than anything else. In that case, forget the bike!
    - pif 7y ago
      > In that case, forget the bike! That's exactly my point. I thought several times to switch to a motorbike in order to avoid the hassle of traffic, but in the end I decided to stick to car: in normal days, traffic is allievated enough by all the other lovely guys who decide to ride their (motor)bikes; on the worst days (snow), I'd be in a car anyway. I see no point in buying a motorbike just to avoid traffic if it gets useless exactly when I'd need it most!
      - bambax 7y ago
        A motorbike is expensive; an electric bike, depending on how you acquire it, isn't, and therefore you can have one in addition to a car. I built mine from a regular bike and a Chinese Bafang motor, and the cost was around €800 (excluding the bike -- an additional €350 if you need to buy one new).
  - Damogran6 7y ago
    Idon't have a horse in this fight, but that's a logical fallacy. For the times the roads are snowy -find-another-method-.

leetcrew 7y ago

I get that it's wasteful, but I'm not going to bike 20 miles each way to commute to work. edit to be less snarky: I live in a city, so in theory there should be a plethora of sustainable transportation I could take to work. but there just aren't many software jobs in my city, so I have to commute to an exurb. I could move closer to work, but then I would be even farther away from my family (which is important to me). we need more than just an infrastructure upgrade to make this work.

gombosg 7y ago
Yes. You'd (we'd) need better infrastructure (20 miles is doable via train or something) and more remote work. That's also something that will be more widespread in the coming years. Plus we need more environmental-conscious lifestyle choices from people. Where one lives is also a lifestyle choice, not an invariant. The only reason today's cities exists the way they are (huge suburbs, lots of commuting) is because they are based on car transportation, unfortunately this is pretty hard to change. See this for a historical overview: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/08/commute-time-city-size-transportation-urban-planning-history/597055/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/08/commute-time-...

wink 7y ago

I'm one of the most adamant proponents of using a bike... but groceries shopping is kind of the worst example in my opinion? I usually have a relatively roomy bag with me that fits a lot of stuff when I go on a weekend trip but falls completely short when buying groceries. Same for other backpacks I own. Or it could stain the bag. Everything is huge and bulky, especially drinks and cans or even just vegetables for mor than one perseon. Do I really need 2 baskets or 2 extra panniers?

tjr225 7y ago

I'm a huge bike advocate. I also have the luxury of working from home, but when I didn't, I took a combination of bike/train to work. But- I'm having a kid and I have two huge mutts that I adopted. My wife and I like to go camping and hiking with our dogs. So, that means my wife and I need a car and we need a big one. But we have been essentially a single car family for around 4 or 5 years or so. I think a more realistic target would be families moving down to a single car lifestyle. It isn't a huge adjustment but - given the amount of single occupant vehicles you'll see on a given day on the highway - it might take a lot of convincing to get people to carpool.

linuxftw 7y ago
> I'm having a kid and I have two huge mutts that I adopted. My wife and I like to go camping and hiking with our dogs So basically, you're not willing to modify your lifestyle. You don't need those dogs, and there's no reason to go camping or hiking. It's hard to take the 'climate crisis' thing seriously if nobody actually treats it like an actual crisis.
- tjr225 7y ago
  Please- how is this even remotely constructive at all? Do you expect us to solve the climate crisis by suggesting that nobody ever do anything at all? I'm surprised you stopped short and didn't criticize our choice to have a child. Also, if you even spent a moment thinking before you made that comment you'd realize that if my wife and I didn't adopt these two dogs, someone else would have. They were born and then given to a shelter by owners who didn't want them.

mattmaroon 7y ago

It isn’t that humans don’t realize it. Is that we don’t care. For most people in most places not having a car is just tremendously inconvenient. Government can’t make it convenient enough to make too big a dent. 45% of New Yorkers still own cars, compared to 85 nationally. The cost of achieving similar rates in places less densely populated is prohibitive relative to better solutions, and even if you did accomplish it you’re still only pulling 40ish percent of cars off the road. We aren’t going to solve the problem by people realizing driving is bad for the environment, they already know. We’re going to solve it by making driving much less bad for the environment. Electric cars that last forever and renewable energy is clearly the solution, and that government can help with.

jedrek 7y ago
Oh, I didn't realize all people are Americans.
- mattmaroon 7y ago
  That’s a dumb comment. Nothing in there is unique to America.
  - d3ckard 7y ago
    US is very unique, mostly due to on average very low population density, which makes infrastructure very expensive per person. I feel like in Europe there is already a consensus that cars are most useful in countryside areas. The more the population density rises, the more car becomes a problem and not a solution.