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Comment by hwillis | Hacker News Reader

> This Zem car has a pair of carbon filters in the front grille that contributes to cleaning the atmosphere by removing about 4.5lb of Carbon-dioxide per 20,000 miles.

Using the US fleet average (26.4 mpg), an average car produces 4.5 lbs CO2 every 6 miles. These filters can absorb .03% of the CO2 emissions of a combustion car.

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Many more pounds of CO2 yielded in the production of the device.

Greenwashing is going to end up doing more harm in the long run. Instead of coming up with real solutions, we’re burning even more fuel to pretend to reclaim a fraction of a percent of the production costs.

I wish we had better solutions but I don't see greenwashing as being more harm than good, if we're just talking about replacing ICE vehicles with EVs and such. Some people will think they're doing a good thing for the environment, when in reality it's merely just less bad than their previous means. But I don't get what alternative there is that's actually feasible and still keeps us on a greener trajectory. Make it illegal to promote anything as environmentally friendly unless it's near perfectly environmentally friendly in every aspect?

Nobody is going to market this as a serious proposal. This is an art project.

How are you calculating 4.5 lbs / 6 miles?

I think it's closer to 0.15 pound / mile, or 0.85 pound / 6 miles if you like.

Source: http://co2cars.apps.eea.europa.eu

US cars are bigger. EPA 404g CO2/mile

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t...

I also didn't realize I was looking at the numbers for a hybrid

I'll have 10!

7! is sufficient to offset a single ICE car; no need to go all the way to 10!.

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