So even on Lemmy people defend Tesla because “why not protest against coal” and “but this is EV”. Sigh.
People DO protest against coal, and to a much larger extent.
Tesla is a shitty scam company which deserves nothing but bankruptcy. Their factory is destroying huge areas in Brandenburg and uses massive amounts of water in an area where there is severe drought. Brandenburg even has deserts forming for those who are unaware. Even if you would accept Tesla, the factory is placed in the worst place possible.
Apart from the environmental aspects, the company is famous for being atrocious regarding workers rights. That crypto bro scam firm should just get the hell out.
Why are the climate protesters against electric vehicles?
Electric cars do not address any of the main issues cars bring to our society, which are:
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Pollution – Cars are responsible for a significant amount of global and local pollution (microplastic waste, brake dust, embodiment emissions, tailpipe emissions, and noise pollution). Electric cars eliminate tailpipe emissions, but the other pollution-related problems largely remain.
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Infrastructure (Costs. An Unsustainable Pattern of Development) – Cars create an unwanted economic burden on their communities. The infrastructure for cars is expensive to maintain and the maintenance burden for local communities is expected to increase with the adoption of more electric and (someday) fully self-driving cars. This is partly due to the increased weight of the vehicles and also the increased traffic of autonomous vehicles.
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Infrastructure (Land Usage & Induced Demand) – Cities allocate a vast amount of space to cars. This is space that could be used more effectively for other things such as parks, schools, businesses, homes, and so on. We miss out on these things and are forced to pile on additional sprawl when we build vast parking lots and widen roads and highways. This creates part of what is called induced demand. This effect means that the more capacity for cars we add, the more cars we’ll get, and then the more capacity we’ll need to add.
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Independence and Community Access – Cars are not accessible to everyone. Simply put, many people either can’t drive or don’t want to drive. Car-centric city planning is an obstacle for these groups, to name a few: children and teenagers, parents who must chauffeur children to and from all forms of childhood activities, people who can’t afford a car, and many other people who are unable to drive. Imagine the challenge of giving up your car in the late stages of your life. In car-centric areas, you face a great loss of independence.
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Safety – Cars are dangerous to both occupants and non-occupants, but especially the non-occupants. As time goes on cars admittedly become better at protecting the people inside them, but they remain hazardous to the people not inside them. For people walking, riding, or otherwise trying to exercise some form of car-free liberty cars are a constant threat. In car-centric areas, streets and roads are optimized to move cars fast and efficiently rather than protect other road users and pedestrians.
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Social Isolation – A combination of the issues above produces the additional effect of social isolation. There are fewer opportunities for serendipitous interactions with other members of the public. Although there may be many people sharing the road with you (a public space), there are some obvious limitations to the quality of interaction one can have through metal, glass, and plastic boxes.
(Batantly copypasted from the pinned thread on r/fuckcars)
(Batantly copypasted from the pinned thread on r/fuckcars)
Please don’t do that. I have no problem with this kind of content in that echo chamber, but presenting it as objective truth calls into question huge portions of this that are either purely subjective to blatantly wrong.
Just because you don’t like the message, doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
Well it’s baffling to me to have “pollution” as the first point of that list. It’s just beyond my comprehension how one could state that a non-combustion car doesn’t help with pollution problems. Yes alright, there’s still microplastics… But hey, please visit a city like Beijing and tell me again that EVs don’t combat pollution on a massive scale.
It’s nice to be critical and yes, cars are shit for our society. Nevertheless our society has been built around them and people will drive cars. They might do so less in 50 years but right here right now with the way society is organised EVs do definitely play an important part in reducing emissions. Change takes time. And people like the ones protesting against the Gigafactory prefer to ignore this context. To me this line of thinking is naive to say the least and can also be seen as self-righteous and delusional by those for whom no alternative is available now. Lecturing people about their lifestyle is not going to change anything.
Car tires are literally the main contributor of micro plastics in oceans, and by an overwhelming factor. There’s also the brake dust which is a huge issue. Both of those problems are not just not going away with EVs, they’re actually increasing. It’s because the way we build EVs increases their weight to ridiculous levels, even compared to the already obese ICE cars. All while we actually know how to make EVs that would actually reduce those problems. Just because there’s places where it is worse, often also due to the lacking regulations, doesn’t mean we should accept those issues.
Nevertheless our society has been built around them and people will drive cars.
Yeah, because people constantly make those type of excuses, ultimately accepting all the bad instead of fighting back. That’s what communities like them do.
Car tires account for a third of microplastics emissions in Germany. Cars are a major source of pollution, especially compared with alternatives like Bikes or Public transport.
And that is purely talking about operational emissions. The production and disposal of EVs is another huge source of pollution and GHG emissions.
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Climate protesters have expressed concerns about Tesla’s plans, which entail cutting down approximately 250 acres of forest in a rural community of fewer than 8,000 residents near a nature conservation area.
Should be noted that basically all of that forest is a tree farm monoculture.
Now they moved to protesting the water usage of the factory, which is high, but quite low compared to other industries and farms in the area.
I mean, fuck cars in general, but protests that focus on bullshit facts are not helping the cause.
The water usage is a huge issue. The region has suffered a severe drought from 2018-2022. There is some issues with a chemical bubble in the ground that require a careful and coordinated pumping by all water utilities and well operators in the area to not suck it into the aquifer.One water utility had to deny all building permits for new houses, schools, businesses because Teslas water consumption capped the legally and sustainably permittable water extraction in the area.
There was a huge shitshow around the permits Tesla gained with direct political interference from the state government to overlook legal requirements in particular in the context of water. Tesla is fighting to deny access for the water utility to the chemical analysis of the water they extract at their wells.
There is a risk that Tesla could permanently destroy the water supply for hundreds of thousands of people if they are not made to observe the legal requirements and cooperate with other stakeholders for water in the region.
Just move the factory to China. 🤡
Where are these protesters against all the coal power plants in Germany? Probably enjoying the warmth of their cozy houses in winter.
Just deconstruct the factory. Its not needed anywhere in the world.
Coal in germany makes up around 14% of all electricity production.
The rest is:
Solar(33%) Wind(28%) Gas(18%) Whats left is hydro and oil.
Fridays For Future still exists, and they still protest against coal power, demanding earlier shutdowns. Last Generation protested against fossil fuel usage, but nobody cared because they glued themselves to roads and apparently that offended too many. And then there were some others, Extinction Rebellion,…
There have been massive protests against coal plants and coal mines in Germany.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/14/europe/lutzerath-germany-coal-protests-climate-intl/index.html
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-thousands-protest-to-save-hambach-forest/a-46060826
