Comment by throwaway984393
4 years ago
> and besides a lot better for our precious climate, which is the main reason I wanted to cut down on the use of my car.
I'm sure building an e-bike is a lot of fun. But there must be plenty of other ways to help the climate if you'd like to use your car occasionally.
For example, people who bike a lot might still order a ton of goods online (say, from Alibaba?) to save money, which then has the double effect of encouraging the global trade + transportation routes that are not climate friendly, and encouraging the "emerging market" businesses which don't necessarily produce products in the most sustainable ways in order to lower cost.
I know somebody who refuses to turn on their central air conditioning lower than 77F "because that wastes energy so it is irresponsible", and another person who turns off their hot water heater in between daily showers. Really I'd just like some sort of website that compares people's ideas about what helps the climate, to what actually helps, and how to balance things out in one's life.
that seems unfair.. OP is a nerd doing nerd things with the side effect of a feel good environmental story/reward.. vs turning off a hot water heater between daily showers is more like a misunderstanding of thermodynamics(?) or some part of physics. or not running an A/C which, hey, if they're happy, who gives a shit?
> hey, if they're happy, who gives a shit?
They should, and the reason why is recycling.
Everyone believed the claims that recycling would help the planet. But it turned out that most (not all, but most) recycling was being burned or buried, because it was never going to be cost effective. Nobody verified the claims, but it "made them happy" to think they were helping the planet. And now we live in a world with just as much trash and even more microplastics, when we could have been making real changes to actually reduce our waste impact. Letting people blithely say "oh I'm doing it to help the climate" helps people be happy while exacerbating the problem they're pretending to be helping to fix.
Another example is people who say "hey I'm not racist! my best friend is black!" while their subconscious bias at work actively prevents black people from being hired or promoted. Or "I'm not sexist! I love women!" while speaking over them in every meeting and shooting down their ideas. It's not enough to just feel good about what we're doing. We need to verify we're actually helping, not just assume we are.