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Perhaps tires can be made less toxic, but over all, we need to prioritize driving less. WFH means I put barely 3000 miles per year on my car. It's absurd we ar

Perhaps tires can be made less toxic, but over all, we need to prioritize driving less. WFH means I put barely 3000 miles per year on my car. It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's the easiest win for the environment and it's right there for the taking.

tristor 2y ago
Same here, been WFH since 2015, however I did do a lot of driving for other reasons previously. Since 2022 however I drive less than 7000 miles a year, and that includes a family road trip each year for the holidays that is ~2500 miles round-trip. One thing that bothers me is that insurance is getting extremely expensive where I live, even though I hardly drive and my car is garaged year-round due to the greatly increasing amounts of vehicle theft. I've considered a few times just not having a car and renting a car regularly, but services like ZipCar have pretty much died out and I don't live in a city center where they still sometimes exist. I drive on average just once per week, if I could that for a fully-laden cost of less than $500/mo it would be cheaper to rent than buy, but it doesn't seem like there's anyone that's captured this market.
- njarboe 2y ago
  Do you have full coverage on your car? You should consider dropping that. Vehicle theft should not be increasing liability costs that much.
  - tristor 2y ago
    I am required to carry full coverage because my car is financed. Even when I've paid a car off, I still carry full coverage, because liability-only policies tend to not help in my past experiences mostly due to the absolute epidemic of uninsured/unregistered cars on American roadways.
- LeifCarrotson 2y ago
  I can call my insurance agent and take a vehicle (seldom-used winter beater truck in the summer, or seldom-used summer car in the winter) on or off the road at a whim, prorating my premium appropriately. That sucks for usability, but I wonder if there exists a market for 'smart insurance' where I can log into a webpage or use an app to put it on or off a car. But the real answer, I think, is getting a quote for your actual mileage. You're driving 7000 miles a year and being lumped into a risk group with people who are driving two or three times as much: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm Unfortunately, I've found that mileage doesn't have a big impact on my premiums.
matsemann 2y ago
Yeah, the big focus on exhausts from cars has hidden lots of other problems they lead to. EVs don't solve most of these problems. The cars are heavier, hence their tires spread even more micro plastic.
- c0nfused 2y ago
  While micro plastics are a problem climate change is the train coming down the tracks at civilization as a whole. I agree the EVs don't fix everything they are in theory buying us time to make the choices that get rid of cars in the long term.
  - matsemann 2y ago
    I just wish the 4 billion we subsidize EVs with every year here in Norway were put to other use instead. Could habe built a new metro line every year for that amount of money. Which would have had a much larger long term effect.
    - c0nfused 2y ago
      That's the dream here in the states too. Our issue is that we have built our cities as enormous suburbs with such a low density that rail/transit isn't viable from a cost/person perspective. We tend to think of public transit a a business rather than as a service and our tax payers don't want to spend billions on not driving especially as our cost per mile is insane[0]. So, for the states EVs are basically the only way for us to ease out of 4000+sqft home on 4 acres and a 40 mile car commute and back into an built environment that does not require a car for all trips [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-26/the-u-s-gets-less-subway-for-its-money-than-its-peers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-26/the-u-s-g...
  - kiba 2y ago
    They should be buying EVs for those who needs them such as rural area. For the rest of us, our quality of life would improve if we get rid of cars and densify areas.
thfuran 2y ago
Is it actually a win for the environment? Sure, not commuting is, but what about more people deciding to live in less dense areas?
- kps 2y ago
  A house can be approximately net zero from solar panels. Much denser housing can't be.
  - epistasis 2y ago
    Denser housing can easily be net zero from nearby solar panels. Additionally, denser housing is much more energy efficient, requiring less overall energy, but this is kind of a minor impact. Once we get to solar + batteries powering most of our energy needs, cutting space heating energy needs by 20%-50% doesn't matter much.
  - kylebenzle 2y ago
    The denser the housing the more efficient in almost every way. Even if we had the money the world already doesn't have enough resources for everyone to get a single family home with solar panels, batteries, a tesla and a well, most will have to live in dense cities to survive.
  - blargey 2y ago
    When the topic is "tire wear on cars causes significant environmental damage, not just their combustion-engine emissions", praising houses for just their electricity consumption seems a little silly.
    - kps 2y ago
      The immediate context was an objection to WFH, not driving.
- epistasis 2y ago
  One of the biggest environmental impacts is driving, so the real key is to have mixed uses near by. If you have a family and still need to drive your kids to school everyday, because schools are too far away to walk and there's no bus (typical in California), if you need to drive to go to the grocery store, if you need to drive to do everything in your life, then working from home in a less dense area might still involve a very similar amount of driving. Once vehicle miles travelled is subtracted out, the biggest impact from living in less dense areas is deforestation, reduction of large fauna in ecosystems, etc. A classic example of that is the Santa Cruz Mountains, highly populated by low-density living, but getting in and out is so arduous that most people do not commute much, or even leave their houses for much. A good life for hermits, but it's not for everyone.
MisterTea 2y ago
> It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's absurd that tech people seem to think that WFH is applicable to everyone. I'm in a shop right now and have to touch machinery on a daily basis. So do the rest of the workers.
- omginternets 2y ago
  Surely the OP's point is that a significant proportion of the workforce can WFH, and that this would have a significant environmental impact...
- faeriechangling 2y ago
  Jealousy politics are indeed an obstacle but the societal insistence that everybody needs to pollute the environment because some people have to pollute the environment is nonsense.
kylebenzle 2y ago
We could replace all the synthetic rubber with home grown natural rubber right now. It would last longer and be of much higher quality but it would double prices or more, so instead we burn oil and dump pulverized plastics into our waterways, because its a little cheaper.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Then the obvious answer is to price those externalities into the cost of the synthetic rubber tires. Of course then you'll have a lot of lower-income folks driving around on dangerously worn-out tires because they can't afford new ones. By the way I thought it was the synthetic rubber tires that lasted longer, but certainly possible that I'm mistaken.
  - AJ007 2y ago
    Yes, synthetic should be more durable than natural rubber. Once the petrochemical supply is exhausted, or what is left is extremely expensive to extract, they won't be able to afford new tires either. (Tires, and personal passenger vehicles, could be some of the least important of the "missing" consumption from the loss of petrochemicals.)
- bennyhill 2y ago
  Interesting, but wouldn't using only natural rubber result in a huge amount of land clearing and then a monoculture, similar to the environmental issues of palm oil?
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    We have a lot of already-cleared farmland that sits vacant or could be used more profitably. I don't know if it's suitable for growing rubber trees, but I doubt we'd have to do a lot of clearing.
    - oivey 2y ago
      It’s not. We use synthetic rubber because natural rubber is expensive and can’t be cultivated easily in the US.
Neil44 2y ago
As long as aggressively promoting WFH doesn't penalise people for whom this is not an option.
- lm28469 2y ago
  OK but then how many people are penalised by having to own a car?
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    A lot of people simply can't work from home due to lack of space, noise and interruptions, etc. It's a lot easier to buy a cheap used car than uproot your entire living situation to a new home where you can WFH, which you also might not be able to afford. Not to mention you probably already own your car for other things like getting groceries.
    - blueflow 2y ago
      Blue collar jobs usually cannot be done from home...
    - Spooky23 2y ago
      There are lots of ways to adapt to that. For example, you can have localized telework centers or subsidize co-working spaces. The current situation is far worse. People are literally trapped in a cycle of poverty or bad work experience because they cannot get to a suburban office park for want of a car. WFH has lots of limitations. Distribute work geographically and you can lower costs and improve outcomes. Why have accounts payable reps in New Jersey in a giant office when I could rent a small office in Maine or Kentucky for 80% less and pay the workers 30% less, without the complexities of offshoring.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > subsidize co-working spaces These are called offices. Look, I WFH and I love it. But in the process I probably quintupled my emissions. I might be able to get that down to quadrupling with an EV and full solar array. But the realities of suburban/rural living are simply much harsher on the environment.
njarboe 2y ago
Driving is an amazing. It allows everyone huge amounts of freedom in what they do and who they spend time with. Having lots of shops and workplaces near your home is great and should be encouraged, but we should try and find ways to keep the freedom of personal transportation and reduce the impact it has. Lots and lots of tunnels, better tires, electric cars use brakes much less and could get to almost zero, etc.
- lm28469 2y ago
  > freedom It's also stupidly expensive for most people, and made us develop a car centric approach to a lot of things, a lot of problems it solves are problems we wouldn't have if we designed our cities in other ways Replacing the current 2b vehicles on earth by electric vehicles will buy us a few years at best but it won't solve the deeper issues
- avidphantasm 2y ago
  Cars are our worst invention, second only to agriculture.
  - jjtheblunt 2y ago
    did you forget gunpowder and religion?
- latortuga 2y ago
  Yes, please may I have some more of the unmitigated freedom to pay a ballooning portion of household income toward a depreciating asset; the absolute pleasure of having to buy government-mandated insurance; the utter relief of participating in one of the most dangerous daily activities; the free choice of being able to salt the earth with CO2 emissions and tire particulate matter; and who can forget the ~socialized~ capitalist federal- and state-built roadways that cities are going bankrupt trying to keep up with funding.
  - lonelyasacloud 2y ago
    Not to mention the sheer joy of listening to the roar of traffic pretty much everywhere, the cost of sound insulation so that I can sleep at night, the increased medical costs (pollution/obesity/stress), drive through litter, being bullied off the road if you're not in a car, and having to either give way to metal box owners or cross roads at locations intended purely to enable them to move freely. All the while watching endless ads that'd make the Marlboro man blush - endless empty roads and vehicles that wouldn't harm a fluffy bunny. Yep, freedumb.
renewiltord 2y ago
That's 3000 miles too many. Consider cutting that down to zero. I suggest an e-bike, a normal bike, or just walking. Think about how many tire particles you put into the environment, especially if you didn't just stick to controlled city environments and went to the woods. Our plant and animal life will thank you.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  Consider all of the shoe tread debris you create by walking or riding bicycles. Consider only walking barefoot, or just stay in one place and stop moving your body around. Judgemental strangers on the internet will thank you.
bilsbie 2y ago
I say we let adults make their own decisions on how much they want to drive.
- polygamous_bat 2y ago
  Does your libertarian attitude extend to your neighbors burning tires in their backyards? Individual actions can incur communal costs. “Freedom” doesn’t mean “freedom from the consequence of your actions.”
  - bch 2y ago
    This, (and/)or start charging for the true costs (externalities).
- pie420 2y ago
  Let’s not control others. If people want to use lead paint, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to use leaded gasoline, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to build with asbestos, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to cook with trans fats, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to do fentanyl, let them. the entire basis of society and progress is controlling others for the prosperity of the human race.
  - bilsbie 2y ago
    The world would be a sad place when we we need to apply for a permit to visit family. That’s where all this ends up. Good intentions and all that.
    - 2024throwaway 2y ago
      That is one hell of a leap. That slope must be very slippery indeed.
- p_j_w 2y ago
  As long as they're willing to pay the actual costs borne by the rest of us for their decisions, sure, why not? The problem is they're generally not, and when you suggest that they need to, they have a very not adult-like temper tantrum.
pfdietz 2y ago
Indeed, we need personal aircars!
michael9423 2y ago
"we need to prioritize driving less." I doubt the majority of the world population wants to be included in your "we".
- faeriechangling 2y ago
  I’m not so convinced that people are so foolish. Maybe they don’t want to be the first ones to stop driving but I think most people recognize the problems we face as a society.
  - michael9423 2y ago
    India, Africa and China are just waking up economically. Hundreds of millions of people waiting to buy cars to improve their quality of life by being more mobile.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

tristor 2y ago

Same here, been WFH since 2015, however I did do a lot of driving for other reasons previously. Since 2022 however I drive less than 7000 miles a year, and that includes a family road trip each year for the holidays that is ~2500 miles round-trip. One thing that bothers me is that insurance is getting extremely expensive where I live, even though I hardly drive and my car is garaged year-round due to the greatly increasing amounts of vehicle theft. I've considered a few times just not having a car and renting a car regularly, but services like ZipCar have pretty much died out and I don't live in a city center where they still sometimes exist. I drive on average just once per week, if I could that for a fully-laden cost of less than $500/mo it would be cheaper to rent than buy, but it doesn't seem like there's anyone that's captured this market.

njarboe 2y ago
Do you have full coverage on your car? You should consider dropping that. Vehicle theft should not be increasing liability costs that much.
- tristor 2y ago
  I am required to carry full coverage because my car is financed. Even when I've paid a car off, I still carry full coverage, because liability-only policies tend to not help in my past experiences mostly due to the absolute epidemic of uninsured/unregistered cars on American roadways.
LeifCarrotson 2y ago
I can call my insurance agent and take a vehicle (seldom-used winter beater truck in the summer, or seldom-used summer car in the winter) on or off the road at a whim, prorating my premium appropriately. That sucks for usability, but I wonder if there exists a market for 'smart insurance' where I can log into a webpage or use an app to put it on or off a car. But the real answer, I think, is getting a quote for your actual mileage. You're driving 7000 miles a year and being lumped into a risk group with people who are driving two or three times as much: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm Unfortunately, I've found that mileage doesn't have a big impact on my premiums.

matsemann 2y ago

Yeah, the big focus on exhausts from cars has hidden lots of other problems they lead to. EVs don't solve most of these problems. The cars are heavier, hence their tires spread even more micro plastic.

c0nfused 2y ago
While micro plastics are a problem climate change is the train coming down the tracks at civilization as a whole. I agree the EVs don't fix everything they are in theory buying us time to make the choices that get rid of cars in the long term.
- matsemann 2y ago
  I just wish the 4 billion we subsidize EVs with every year here in Norway were put to other use instead. Could habe built a new metro line every year for that amount of money. Which would have had a much larger long term effect.
  - c0nfused 2y ago
    That's the dream here in the states too. Our issue is that we have built our cities as enormous suburbs with such a low density that rail/transit isn't viable from a cost/person perspective. We tend to think of public transit a a business rather than as a service and our tax payers don't want to spend billions on not driving especially as our cost per mile is insane[0]. So, for the states EVs are basically the only way for us to ease out of 4000+sqft home on 4 acres and a 40 mile car commute and back into an built environment that does not require a car for all trips [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-26/the-u-s-gets-less-subway-for-its-money-than-its-peers https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-26/the-u-s-g...
- kiba 2y ago
  They should be buying EVs for those who needs them such as rural area. For the rest of us, our quality of life would improve if we get rid of cars and densify areas.

thfuran 2y ago

Is it actually a win for the environment? Sure, not commuting is, but what about more people deciding to live in less dense areas?

kps 2y ago
A house can be approximately net zero from solar panels. Much denser housing can't be.
- epistasis 2y ago
  Denser housing can easily be net zero from nearby solar panels. Additionally, denser housing is much more energy efficient, requiring less overall energy, but this is kind of a minor impact. Once we get to solar + batteries powering most of our energy needs, cutting space heating energy needs by 20%-50% doesn't matter much.
- kylebenzle 2y ago
  The denser the housing the more efficient in almost every way. Even if we had the money the world already doesn't have enough resources for everyone to get a single family home with solar panels, batteries, a tesla and a well, most will have to live in dense cities to survive.
- blargey 2y ago
  When the topic is "tire wear on cars causes significant environmental damage, not just their combustion-engine emissions", praising houses for just their electricity consumption seems a little silly.
  - kps 2y ago
    The immediate context was an objection to WFH, not driving.
epistasis 2y ago
One of the biggest environmental impacts is driving, so the real key is to have mixed uses near by. If you have a family and still need to drive your kids to school everyday, because schools are too far away to walk and there's no bus (typical in California), if you need to drive to go to the grocery store, if you need to drive to do everything in your life, then working from home in a less dense area might still involve a very similar amount of driving. Once vehicle miles travelled is subtracted out, the biggest impact from living in less dense areas is deforestation, reduction of large fauna in ecosystems, etc. A classic example of that is the Santa Cruz Mountains, highly populated by low-density living, but getting in and out is so arduous that most people do not commute much, or even leave their houses for much. A good life for hermits, but it's not for everyone.

MisterTea 2y ago

> It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's absurd that tech people seem to think that WFH is applicable to everyone. I'm in a shop right now and have to touch machinery on a daily basis. So do the rest of the workers.

omginternets 2y ago
Surely the OP's point is that a significant proportion of the workforce can WFH, and that this would have a significant environmental impact...
faeriechangling 2y ago
Jealousy politics are indeed an obstacle but the societal insistence that everybody needs to pollute the environment because some people have to pollute the environment is nonsense.

kylebenzle 2y ago

We could replace all the synthetic rubber with home grown natural rubber right now. It would last longer and be of much higher quality but it would double prices or more, so instead we burn oil and dump pulverized plastics into our waterways, because its a little cheaper.

SoftTalker 2y ago
Then the obvious answer is to price those externalities into the cost of the synthetic rubber tires. Of course then you'll have a lot of lower-income folks driving around on dangerously worn-out tires because they can't afford new ones. By the way I thought it was the synthetic rubber tires that lasted longer, but certainly possible that I'm mistaken.
- AJ007 2y ago
  Yes, synthetic should be more durable than natural rubber. Once the petrochemical supply is exhausted, or what is left is extremely expensive to extract, they won't be able to afford new tires either. (Tires, and personal passenger vehicles, could be some of the least important of the "missing" consumption from the loss of petrochemicals.)
bennyhill 2y ago
Interesting, but wouldn't using only natural rubber result in a huge amount of land clearing and then a monoculture, similar to the environmental issues of palm oil?
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  We have a lot of already-cleared farmland that sits vacant or could be used more profitably. I don't know if it's suitable for growing rubber trees, but I doubt we'd have to do a lot of clearing.
  - oivey 2y ago
    It’s not. We use synthetic rubber because natural rubber is expensive and can’t be cultivated easily in the US.

Neil44 2y ago

As long as aggressively promoting WFH doesn't penalise people for whom this is not an option.

lm28469 2y ago
OK but then how many people are penalised by having to own a car?
- crazygringo 2y ago
  A lot of people simply can't work from home due to lack of space, noise and interruptions, etc. It's a lot easier to buy a cheap used car than uproot your entire living situation to a new home where you can WFH, which you also might not be able to afford. Not to mention you probably already own your car for other things like getting groceries.
  - blueflow 2y ago
    Blue collar jobs usually cannot be done from home...
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    There are lots of ways to adapt to that. For example, you can have localized telework centers or subsidize co-working spaces. The current situation is far worse. People are literally trapped in a cycle of poverty or bad work experience because they cannot get to a suburban office park for want of a car. WFH has lots of limitations. Distribute work geographically and you can lower costs and improve outcomes. Why have accounts payable reps in New Jersey in a giant office when I could rent a small office in Maine or Kentucky for 80% less and pay the workers 30% less, without the complexities of offshoring.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > subsidize co-working spaces These are called offices. Look, I WFH and I love it. But in the process I probably quintupled my emissions. I might be able to get that down to quadrupling with an EV and full solar array. But the realities of suburban/rural living are simply much harsher on the environment.

njarboe 2y ago

Driving is an amazing. It allows everyone huge amounts of freedom in what they do and who they spend time with. Having lots of shops and workplaces near your home is great and should be encouraged, but we should try and find ways to keep the freedom of personal transportation and reduce the impact it has. Lots and lots of tunnels, better tires, electric cars use brakes much less and could get to almost zero, etc.

lm28469 2y ago
> freedom It's also stupidly expensive for most people, and made us develop a car centric approach to a lot of things, a lot of problems it solves are problems we wouldn't have if we designed our cities in other ways Replacing the current 2b vehicles on earth by electric vehicles will buy us a few years at best but it won't solve the deeper issues
avidphantasm 2y ago
Cars are our worst invention, second only to agriculture.
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
  did you forget gunpowder and religion?
latortuga 2y ago
Yes, please may I have some more of the unmitigated freedom to pay a ballooning portion of household income toward a depreciating asset; the absolute pleasure of having to buy government-mandated insurance; the utter relief of participating in one of the most dangerous daily activities; the free choice of being able to salt the earth with CO2 emissions and tire particulate matter; and who can forget the ~socialized~ capitalist federal- and state-built roadways that cities are going bankrupt trying to keep up with funding.
- lonelyasacloud 2y ago
  Not to mention the sheer joy of listening to the roar of traffic pretty much everywhere, the cost of sound insulation so that I can sleep at night, the increased medical costs (pollution/obesity/stress), drive through litter, being bullied off the road if you're not in a car, and having to either give way to metal box owners or cross roads at locations intended purely to enable them to move freely. All the while watching endless ads that'd make the Marlboro man blush - endless empty roads and vehicles that wouldn't harm a fluffy bunny. Yep, freedumb.

renewiltord 2y ago

That's 3000 miles too many. Consider cutting that down to zero. I suggest an e-bike, a normal bike, or just walking. Think about how many tire particles you put into the environment, especially if you didn't just stick to controlled city environments and went to the woods. Our plant and animal life will thank you.

_yb2s 2y ago
Consider all of the shoe tread debris you create by walking or riding bicycles. Consider only walking barefoot, or just stay in one place and stop moving your body around. Judgemental strangers on the internet will thank you.

bilsbie 2y ago

I say we let adults make their own decisions on how much they want to drive.

polygamous_bat 2y ago
Does your libertarian attitude extend to your neighbors burning tires in their backyards? Individual actions can incur communal costs. “Freedom” doesn’t mean “freedom from the consequence of your actions.”
- bch 2y ago
  This, (and/)or start charging for the true costs (externalities).
pie420 2y ago
Let’s not control others. If people want to use lead paint, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to use leaded gasoline, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to build with asbestos, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to cook with trans fats, let them. Let’s not control others. If people want to do fentanyl, let them. the entire basis of society and progress is controlling others for the prosperity of the human race.
- bilsbie 2y ago
  The world would be a sad place when we we need to apply for a permit to visit family. That’s where all this ends up. Good intentions and all that.
  - 2024throwaway 2y ago
    That is one hell of a leap. That slope must be very slippery indeed.
p_j_w 2y ago
As long as they're willing to pay the actual costs borne by the rest of us for their decisions, sure, why not? The problem is they're generally not, and when you suggest that they need to, they have a very not adult-like temper tantrum.

pfdietz 2y ago

Indeed, we need personal aircars!

michael9423 2y ago

"we need to prioritize driving less." I doubt the majority of the world population wants to be included in your "we".

faeriechangling 2y ago
I’m not so convinced that people are so foolish. Maybe they don’t want to be the first ones to stop driving but I think most people recognize the problems we face as a society.
- michael9423 2y ago
  India, Africa and China are just waking up economically. Hundreds of millions of people waiting to buy cars to improve their quality of life by being more mobile.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]