“I’m wondering if there’s some point- if you’ve identified some point where you will stop, where the administration will stop, where the federal government will stop this requirement and let the market decide…"
Let the market decide? Sure let’s do that. As of now, let’s have the U.S. government stop subsidizing the oil industry to the tune of $20 billion+ per year and see who keeps buying gas powered cars when gas is $15-20 per gallon. Better still, pour that $20 billion into EV car development and green energy and help save the fucking planet.
EVs can’t save the environment. EVs are made from oil (tires, plastics), and the metals they are made from are extracted and shipped using huge machines also made from and burning oil.
Switching from pumping oil to mining Lithium isn’t a net improvement to the environment.
Any mode of transportation that is heavy and uses tires is going to be a major source of microplastics.
It is not possible to expand into sustainability when it’s our massive scale that is at the core of our unsustainability. Degrowth is our only chance.
I’ll take the lesser evil of local pollution over sending billions of tons of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere every year.
I doubt degrowth will ever happen unless it’s caused by population collapse due to mass casualties.
8 billion is unsustainable, our population will decrease drastically in the coming century. We can choose whether it’s via degrowth (a controlled, intentional, intelligent reversal of the economic growth of the last decades) or famine, disease, and war.
I fear you’re right that degrowth will never happen and we’re just going to march toward collapse.
