• xyzzy@lemmy.today
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    7 hours ago

    What, that focusing solely on electric cars are not the solution to climate change and is only a band-aid? No, it’s the truth.

    You’re changing the goalposts. I was clearly referring to the quoted portion of your assertion that electric cars are a net negative for climate change.

    This is false:

    Electric Cars which net doesn’t help and in fact worsens our e-waste issue.

    It’s better than ice cars in the short run, but you guys really need to focus on other, more practical solutions like better public transports and less car-centric infrastructure and laws.

    Thank you for the advice on how the US should operate. Good points that no one has ever considered.

    Cities, states, and regions have been and are continuing to improve the public transit infrastructure. The problem exists primarily at the federal level, as well as cost, local zoning, eminent domain and the lawsuits that follow, and certain state and federal environmental laws that result in lengthy studies and more lawsuits.

    These are all factors that have slowed down the California High-Speed Rail Project, for example. The goal is for it is to eventually connect every major city in California to high-speed rail (and Las Vegas via another high-speed rail line, Brightline West). Excluding Las Vegas, the total length of track is roughly the length of Belgium to Poland. And that’s half of one state.

    The Northeast is already covered in rail. Going from city to city is easier that way, even though it’s not high speed. NYC to DC is 3.5 hours and requires no cars, door to door. This works because of density, the same reason it works in Europe and Asia. The US is very large and doesn’t have density everywhere. Building and maintaining the 4,500 km of high-speed rail track necessary to connect Los Angeles to NYC is expensive and difficult. That’s Lisbon to Moscow.

    • stephen01king@piefed.zip
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      6 hours ago

      Well, first of all, you could read usernames. That would be helpful to determine what points you’re going to argue against and what the appropriate response would be.

      Second, nobody is asserting that the US never considered public transport, we were only addressing the actual decision of the US in general, which IS very much focused on electric cars to the detriment of progress on much saner public transport projects. The Vegas Loop and similar projects immediately come to mind.

      The laws that gets in the way of public transport projects are a result of the US’s obsession with car-centrism and capitalism. Instead of thinking of long term solutions, they’d rather clutch to a band aid solution to keep their status quo.

      And discussions about public transport is not focussed solely on trains. On the contrary, the most depressing thing about the us car-centrism is the inability to do short trips without needing a car. Pedestrian and cycling infrastructure are pretty cheap relative to building high speed train networks or even inner city metros, yet the US even struggle with that.

      The source of the problem are the people themselves who have been deluded into thinking they need to force everyone to use a car simply because they don’t want to use public transportation, which is an absurd thought process. The focus on electric cars will only continue this brainwashing, not fix it, so it is a net negative in the long run.