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Comment by kccqzy | Hacker News Reader

Okay. Then how should we measure the emotional value of seeing and smelling gasoline? Experiencing the nostalgia of pumping gasoline just like the good old days of yore? Can you see the problem here? People ascribe emotional value to all sorts of things that may be financially unwise or environmentally damaging. You waste your money I don't care; but we all have one earth to protect.

My point is, climate change is an extremely big threat that we simply don't have much room for these affordances. 2024 is the year to make personal sacrifices to switch to EVs because that's how urgent the situation is.

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I’m pro-ecosystem and pro-weaning off fossil fuels. I’m also tired of the argument that we’re at the point where it’s a do-or-die for individuals to make monetary/QoL sacrifices to switch to EVs as if we had reached the point where this is what’s left and blocking the world from putting an end to global warming.

Maybe focus on area that will have a bigger impact then yet again, foisting the responsibility onto the consumer. Subsidize railroads and public transit, build out commuter rail, reduce air travel, electrify the railroads, move more freight onto rail, electrify trucks.

There are far better targets to reducing the amount of oil and gas burned, ones that are more uniform and less varied them peoples lives not to mention moving people to transit and commuter rail is better then evs anyways

The areas you are describing may have bigger impact like switching to railroads and public transit, but they are more difficult to achieve than switching to EVs and represent a bigger change to people's lifestyles. Relying on that is not going to work. Be practical. If I'm downvoted when I said let's make personal sacrifices to switch to EVs, can't you see the amount of personal sacrifice is way bigger to switch to rail and public transit?

The carbon comes from the ground. The car’s just the delivery mechanism. Why not phase out fossil fuel production à la the Montreal Protocol? If somebody somewhere someday can make money burning oil, they will. Buying an electric car isn’t going to keep carbon in the ground by itself.

And, as long as there are wars to be fought, the military is happy to burn the fuel by the millions of gallons per day.

Finally! Someone who says it the way I see it. I believe the personal-responsibility-as-a-framework (PRAAF) for solving pollution problems is a joke. I genuinely believe that big petrochemical companies and other stakeholders pushed this story to be able to d business as usual for as long as possible. I know it's true for the "plastics recycling" narrative. Which is and has always been a joke¹ and the petrochemical companies know this. We should not strofe about whether range anxiety is a real problem or not. We should unite to keep oil companies responsible for destroying the climate. They are the ones that made sure every little town in america had a fuel station, thus creating demand, they lobbied against electric cars, they downplayed climate change. We should not wave our finger at other individuals who's contribution to climate change is negligible. We should unite with people who have range anxiety and fix these problems. Force Exxon Mobile/BP/Shell to install fast chargers in every town where there is a fuel station. Force them to install fast chargers all over the country as a start of the reparations for destroying the climate.

¹ https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...

Isn't phasing out fossil fuel basically already announced as a goal by various governments around the world? To make that goal realistic, EVs are a stepping stone; you simply can't phase out the production of something when the consumption hasn't been phased out yet.

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