What’s the trim in the electric car made of? How about the insulation around the wires? The clear coat on the paint? The lamination layer in the glass? What about the headlights and tail lights? The bumper covers? The logo and model letters? How was it delivered to the dealership for you to buy? You think there wasn’t any oil consumed in the mining and refining of the non petroleum materials that constitute the rest of the vehicle? You said stop buying oil. Not stop using gasoline.
The oil in your plastics for your car aren’t being burned, so they don’t contribute nearly as much as gasoline and diesel fuels do towards climate change.
Today is completely impossible to eliminate plastics from the global economy, so ranting about plastic use making it impossible to stop climate change is a red herring.
Only about 10% of oil goes into plastic. We can also make bioplastics out of corn and other agricultural products.
The oil to make that plastic still needs to be pumped out of the ground, refined, and manufactured into an end product. Leaving a trail of carbon emissions and other pollution along the way. It doesn’t just come out of the ground shaped into whatever you want it to be. Bioplastics made from corn are also very resource intensive to produce. While a better option, they’re not perfect either. It’s really not a red herring. Just because it isn’t polluting as an end product doesn’t mean they’re clean. And with things like toxic fumes from off gassing and the products from plastic degradation having long term consequences, it’s not like they just stop being bad as finished products either.
Ok, stop buying gasoline then. Because the vast majority of oil is used for fuels. Only a small percentage is used for plastics, like less than 1%. 50% is used for gasoline alone.
Simpler? Imagine if we could reduce oil GHGs by 50%. Just by changing the way consumers drive.
Global production of oil per day is about 90 million barrls. If we use your 50% for gasoline production that’s 45 million barrels. Or 16.425 billion per year. 3.2 billion barrels.) are used annually in the US. Or 19.45% of the global supply of gasoline. About 76% of that is used by individuals. And that’s a generous estimate. The average mpg of a car on the road in the US is 36. The average American drives 13.5k miles per year. Leading to an roughly average annual consumption of 365 gallons per driver per year. 83% of Americans drive frequently. Leaving an annual consumption of about 2.46 billion barrels per year for private citizens gasoline consumption. Or 14.9% of global gas consumption. And again that’s being generous on the average consumption per citizen. I couldn’t find any real numbers on the actual amount of gas consumed by individuals for individual needs in the US.
Also, globally, 45% of oil is used for gasoline. 29% for diesel and the remaining 26% are used for plastic and other products. So my percentage of the us’ consumption per year, and in return the average citizen is exaggerated by a decent margin. That’s not to mention the fact that the majority of the US’ industry runs on diesel. So if we’re going by petroleum fuels, the impact of the average US citizens gas consumption is even lower. You’re trying to eliminate 75% of 19% of 45%, or 6.4% of the total problem by switching to electric. And, again, that’s being generous.
Institutional problems CANNOT be changed by individual action. We need a lot more than 6.4% of pollution to stop if we even have a shot at unfucking ourselves
remaining 26% are used for plastic and other products.
I don’t think you read your source. The little figure of the oil drum shows 6/45 gallons goes to other products, including some to pladtics. That’s 13% not 26. And it’s wrong to say all of that is plastic is hilariously wrong.
You could have saved yourself all that time and math and gone to a single source about how much GHGs come from domestic drivingbin the US. Here it is
The transportation sector is one of the largest contributors to anthropogenic U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
transportation accounted for the largest portion (29%) of total U.S. GHG emissions in 2021.
On-Road Vehicles account for 1,496.4 Tg CO2 equivalent
But maybe you’re thinking that the money Americans spend on gas in a year is piddly. After all it’s only $562 Billion a year. Pocket change for BP, right?
So do you think that eliminating that many tonnes of CO2 and that many barrels of oil from companies bottom line would have an impact? Maybe just a little itsy Bitsy tiny bit?
Or are you just going to keep pretending that consumer choices don’t drive markets and climate change.
