The Biggest Threat to Climate Progress is How Stupid We Can Be When We Write About It

I have a problem. I’m curious and eager to learn, but I’ve a deadly addiction. That addiction—deadly, I guess, only in so far as it often results in my wanting to pull my own head off—is reading peoples’ opinions about climate change-related subjects in the hope of finding hope. Unfortunately, what I often find is downright stupid thinking, and this from so many who are otherwise educated, smart, articulate.

Here’s a recent typical piece of writing that causes me to despair for its lack of intelligent consideration: on Medium, published July 24, 2023, Elisabeth Robinson writes “There is no part of an EV that is ‘clean’ or ‘green’,” with the deck “Every part of an EV contributes to global warming and pollution, including the computers that make them run.” Robinson’s basic argument is that the manufacturing of electric vehicles is damaging to the environment. She points to lithium mining, but also mentions the use of fossil fuels across the entire breadth of manufacturing, from silicon mining and refining for computer chips and she throws in e-waste, too.

I have no argument with her report of the current CO2 produced in these various power-intensive processes. I understand that lithium mining is environmentally destructive. I know that current policies and practices regarding e-waste are absurd.

But, what, exactly, do we do with this knowledge? Robinson offers no proscriptive vision, but only laments.

With human civilization on the line because of human-caused global warming, laments alone are unhelpful. The problem I have with this sort of writing—exemplified at the extreme in doomerist screeds—is that negative critique doesn’t help, except, perhaps, in getting readers up to speed about there being a problem. According to consistent polls these days here in America, some 70% of people have some understanding that there is a problem with climate change, so, mission accomplished.

We need to move past flagging the problem and get to work on solutions to the problem.

Fortunately, there is a lot being done solution-wise, and EVs are one example. Are EVs the best solution? Personally, I don’t think so, in that I’d prefer a public transportation system that is pervasive, useful, and affordable, with electric trains, buses, and “last mile” self-driving on-call vehicles. The reality is, though, in America any move away from personal transportation in the form of cars is unlikely in the short term. Obviously, when I become Emperor, the timetable for this shift to public transportation will accelerate but don’t hold your breath waiting for me to be named Emperor.

In the real world, EVs make sense. In the real world transitioning to renewable energy sources, storage, and transmission takes time and we are, by some metrics, anyway, moving forward. Until we supplant fossil fuels to solve that greenhouse gases contribution—and this, of course, takes time—we’ll still be using fossil fuels in some part or another of the EV manufacturing process.

Ideal? No. Is this use of fossil fuels necessary and, on balance, progress? Yes.

Electrifying the transportation sector is one of the biggest solutions to the greenhouse gases problem, since the transportation sector accounts for 30-40% of current greenhouse gas emissions. Will that reduction be offset by the use of fossil fuels in the manufacturing process? Yes, but marginally. And that margin continues to improve as renewable energy production expands and technology and processes improve. Add in electrification and energy efficiency increases of buildings and appliances, and we’re tackling another 30% or so of greenhouse gas emissions. Shifting to regenerative agriculture and reducing industrial livestock and another chunk of CO2 and methane emissions gets cut.

This is called progress, imperfect and as it is.

The problem with Robinson’s article is that such progress—however imperfect—isn’t addressed. Worse yet is the sense that what we are doing is actually hurting the world. Here’s one example of how this is argued:

Because of the energy required to mine and refine all the materials that go into making the circuit boards in a computer (or a car), 83% of the energy used by a computer is embodied — meaning the vast majority of energy is used in making that computer, rather than in running it.

Well, on the face of it, this quote certainly suggests our wayward ways. But appearances can be deceiving, and in this case, citing the “83% of the energy used by a computer is embodied” figure is misdirection. Even accepting the figure, the claim means little. One reason why the manufacturing of the computer is such a large part of the overall lifetime cost (like, is that a surprise?) is that the running the computer uses very little energy, so really, no big deal. And then there is no consideration of the benefits of computer use, including, as one small example, the fuel efficiency gains in today’s cars through the application of microchips.

According to Robinson, making EVs carries an environmental cost:

The three thousand or so microchips in a shiny new EV are just one part of the material reality of that EV: an energy intensive, highly polluting one; one that requires using coal and petrochemicals made from fossil fuels; one that emits large quantities of CO2 along with other greenhouse gases and pollutants.

Unfortunately, this means nothing without comparison to the non-EV alternative, which is the continuing manufacturing and use of cars with internal combustion engines. I’m pretty sure that making gas cars is also “an energy intensive, highly polluting one; one that requires using coal and petrochemicals made from fossil fuels; one that emits large quantities of CO2 along with other greenhouse gases and pollutants,” and add to that the greenhouse gas emissions from the years the gas car is in use.

This is what I mean about stupid thinking.

Here’s my last example:

Lithium mining, and the mining required for the many other materials in EVs, is not in any way “clean” or “green”. Neither are the processes required to make the microchips that run these cars. Using these words to describe EVs is a lie. Car companies and mining companies telling us that EVs will somehow “save us from climate change” is a lie. We must not let these companies get away with these lies. Call them on it, every time.

There is no argument that mining, lithium or otherwise, is a dirty business and a lot of that energy used in mining today comes from fossil fuels. So, yes, the manufacturing of EVs today is not “clean” or “green.” But EVs are a part of what can help save us from climate change and no amount of cherry-picking facts and slanting statistics changes that. Complaining that progress isn’t perfect isn’t all that helpful, not when the inference drawn from such complaint is to not pursue even imperfect progress.

There are many, too, who write about the need for our culture to change, including shifting away from the hyper-consumerism one we live in, and I’m all for it. No one needs all the crap that gets produced and marketed mainly for the benefit of business profits based on answering—pathologically—the anxiety and angst of our human condition. But I’d rather not wait for that to happen before addressing climate change, even in ways that are not perfect.

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