Pete Owens wrote:The utility cyclist wrote:But this is still ignoring that the electricity and production parts of electric motor vehicles that use fossil fuels,
I didn't think it would be long before someone tried to distract from the subject by resorting to whataboutery:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhataboutismIt happens whenever solutions are proposed to mitigate any particular environmental problem - talk about some different problem.
The subject of the report is the toxic pollution from ICE tail pipes that is killing thousands of people a year.
the electricity in this country is still produced in significantly quantities by using fossil fuels.
Indeed so, but even on its own terms your whateboutery fails, since wahatever that proportion is it is very much lower than the 100% used to generate the power for conventional vehicles. And what is more, that proportion is reducing and will continue to reduce. We need to eliminate most of our greenhouse emissions within the next couple of decades - and electricity generation is the low hanging fruit. Eventually it will have to be entirely generated by renewables and nuclear to leave enough of the carbon budget for more difficult problems to solve such as agriculture. To reduce transport emissions we need to switch from burning fossil fuels to electric power. Easy for trains, a bit more difficult for road vehicles and impossible at the moment for aviation - though battery technology is improving rapidly.
Also introducing blanket 20mph speed limits as EVs work most efficiently at this speed, well 18-20mph apparently.
No, the point of the 20mph limit is to reduce the pollution from ICE tail pipes.
... with the added bonus of making the streets safer for us.
it didn't take long for someone to incorrectly use the term whataboutery, particularly when it IS a fact regarding the pollution from building EVs, or are you saying that they are made from unicorn tears and dolphin farts?
I'm not distracting from anything, pointing out that the 'solution' being put forward is not a solution at all and that heavier EVs increase the amount of energy required not to mention more batteries, more pollution, more materials to build which equals more pollution, all the infrastructure that will be needed to be built = yet more pollution, nope, according to you it's nothing to be concerned about
The fact that EVs are more efficient at 20mph is a very good incentive/point to make to change the law carte-blanche, Scotland already said they wouldn't do this saying it wasn't able to have one speed limit yet this is precisely what we have in built up areas, using the fact that EVs are most efficient/less polluting by needing less energy and as I said less fossil fuel required to power such adds more weight to ther argument to get 20mph limits in place. Using tailpipe emissions of ICE vehicles idling won't make any difference on speed limit laws, so your thinking is well off.
You seem to think EVs are not pushing the pollution problem elsewhere and creating a lot more for the additional infra, this is totally untrue, you know it's untrue, the problem of pollution is intertwined with EVs, squabbling over ICE tailpipe emissions from idling is already 75 years and more too late, we need to be already thinking about the next step. Going down the wrong route which is EVs does not solve the problem, it simply shifts it with a small overall benefit locally.
But even then you also fail to grasp that EVs are taking away a lot of focus away from increasing active travel, there's a huge focus on getting people out of one killing machine into another that has a hugely less at the tailpipe emissions but nonetheless still causes pollution both at home and abroad. You fail to grasp that billions given in subsidies for EVs and the infra needed is money that won't be spent on increasing cycling and making it safer.
And using a wiki link, really, stop being so lazy!
Crack on though trying to stymie discussion over serious matters!