Good stuff
@gaja!
The problem of "perfect is the enemy of the good" rears its ugly head often in environmental issues:
- does evangelizing about bikes being the only solution stop people from seeking improvements on their current modes of transport?
- does heavy promotion of veganism reduce the number of people who might reduce their meat consumption by say 10%?
- does a focus on
how power is generated overshadow the conversation around reducing consumption regardless of source?
- does arguing that people need stop doing X,Y or Z stop people from considering ways to those things in less impactful ways?
I think a lot of the "extreme" positions are taken by people who realize that ultimately the solutions to climate change are going to have to be fairly extreme. I think that's the case myself. What this approach misses is that asking people to go from zero to extreme in one step is pretty much guaranteed to fail. Getting people to do a "meatless Monday" rather go full vegan isn't "enough" relative to the problem at hand, but it might be palatable enough for someone to try. The hope then is that they're open to further incremental changes. And then, perhaps the incremental changes lead to something closer the "extreme."
Of course, we work within systems and infrastructures that define where "extreme" is. 68% of trips to school and work in Amsterdam are by bike because the infrastructure supports it. Getting to 80% probably isn't supported by their infrastructure, yet. For many other cities around the world, but especially in North America getting to 5% would be extreme.
People will choose what to do in just about every area based on what's most convenient (fastest, lowest cost, etc.). Some of the decision-making around convenience is logical, but much of it also isn't - there's so much influence of habit, childhood, what everyone else is doing, and especially
identity.
People in Amsterdam don't bike because they're altruistically doing something they don't want to do for the good of others. They're doing it because it's the best option based on factors like cost of private vehicles, bike paths, bike parking, work policies, bike design, helmet laws (lack thereof, which is possible because of the infrastructure, etc.), and because it's normal.
In a weak attempt to tie this back to the OP question... EVs are relatively easy to adopt because the infrastructure mostly already supports them (roads, parking, etc.). Some would say that the infrastructure doesn't support them because of a lack of sufficient public charging, and charging solutions for renters, apartment-dwellers, and street-parkers. There's some truth to that, but for a significant proportion of the population those infrastructure concerns aren't a big deal. Right now, the biggest factor that will drive or slow adoption is
identity. If driving an EV conflicts with your identity you will hold out as long as possible. If it confirms or reinforces your identity, you'll pay a bit extra to be an early adopter. If it has no bearing on your identity, you'll drive one when the economics makes sense for you.
Topic: Electric Cars: Can they finally become popular in the United States? (Read 537246 times)
