Politico

  • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    In my ideal world, we’d have a full carbon tax as well as a vehicle weight tax, and we’d use part of that to fund more electrified public transit (e.g., trains, trams, trolleybuses) and bike infrastructure. Plus we need to actually legalize dense, walkable urbanism. The zoning codes and parking minimums in North America make it literally illegal to build anything dense, walkable, and transit-oriented across almost all the urban land, resulting in miles and miles of government-mandated sprawl.

    The future of sustainable urban is truly in public transit and micromobility – car dependency just doesn’t make any sense in cities, as no amount of electric cars can make up for the harm caused by sprawling, car-dependent land use. Electric cars are obviously less bad than ICE cars, but just swapping out ICE cars for electric is not actually financially, socially, or environmentally sustainable.

    We should still have electric cars for the use cases (e.g., rural areas) for which you truly do need them, but the vehicle weight arms race (especially for trucks and SUVs) is getting out of control and we need the electric cars we would still have to be much smaller and lighter like this. Fewer electric hummers, more electric kei trucks, more electric trains, more electric bikes.

    • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I am a Republican and I hate their stance on electric cars, walkable cities, etc. For some reason, the party has taken an ignorant and hard stance against electric.

      Electric cars currently are not better for the environment in any measurable way. I am OK with that since the technology is growing. It will get much better. As we add solar panels to homes or nuclear power that will greatly help since we will not be burning fossil fuels.

      My republican friends all tease me because of my Tesla. In return, I took them for a ride and I will say it changed their opinion. They thought it would be slow and clunky. Even the model 3 is a rocket with great handling.

      People always make weird claims like oh, the range is so limited. I travel often for work and honestly, the range isn’t that big of a deal.

      I use to live in a larger city that had public transportation and it was much more walkable. Honestly, it was better than i had imagined. It was wonderful to complete more daily chores by walking. I have always liked to walk but it was also less stressful. I still had a car but I drove it once or twice every few months when I had to do something further away.

      The largest issue with electric cars is the cost and the ability to charge. When I lived in the larger city, charging was hard. To add it to my condo was going to cost 20K. That is a something that needs to be figured out and put in the laws. The building was just milking it and it would have not been cost effective.

      • Reptorian@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        I am a Republican and I hate their stance on electric cars, walkable cities, etc. For some reason, the party has taken an ignorant and hard stance against electric.

        Could you look at other stances too? It’s not just this.

        • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Such as? I would prefer to stay on the topic of electric cars. You can see my post history and I am a very moderate Republican. I have been my whole life.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Did you, self-declared “very moderate” Republican, vote for Trump either time?

            Because, historically, Hillary and Biden would be considered very moderate Republicans.

                • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  I didn’t vote for Trump but none of this is relevant to the topic.

                  I would prefer to stay on topic rather than talk about Trump. Unlike you I don’t have an obsession with him.

                  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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                    1 year ago

                    The only reason so many people are “obsessed” with him is because all 350M or so of us saw exactly the sort of person he is, and exactly the sort of damage he could do as president. Some people liked that. Most of us were horrified, and were additionally horrified by the fraction of people who did actually genuinely like him because of the things he did and continues to do. It’s a litmus test.

                    But yes - you’re nominally right, so let’s put the man aside for a moment. Personally, I’m still curious which current, national-level GOP policies you continue to find compelling.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Please present evidence that I have an “obsession” with Trump. Unless that was a lie. Was it a lie?

                    Two posts is not an obsession.

          • Reptorian@lemmy.zip
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            1 year ago
            • No exceptions for rape and incest.
            • Supporting 1/6
            • Observation of them being worse for the economy after investigating state of economy for decades
            • Closing of majority-black voting poll locations.

            And this is a short list

            • MomoTimeToDie@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              No exceptions for rape and incest.

              The alternative currently being no restrictions whatsoever, which, statistically speaking, is more relevant than a small % worth of exceptions. Make me Supreme overlord of the universe and you bet you’ll have a few exceptions.

              Supporting 1/6

              Burn the fucking government to the ground for all I care.

              Observation of them being worse for the economy after investigating state of economy for decades

              OK and? I’m not playing some strategy game here. Optimizing existence isn’t the goal. “the economy” isn’t some God we must appease.

              Closing of majority-black voting poll locations.

              Pretty fucking bottom of the barrel shit to be deciding a vote based on. Decide polling locations by throwing a dart at a map for all I care.