zlacker

>>Brajes+(OP)
I'm starting to wonder whether the conventional wisdom of reducing carbon emissions in favour of more electricalisation is really solving the actual problem. As is often pointed out on HN, electrical cars are substantially heavier than their fossil fueled alternatives, and generate other pollution along the way. Furthermore, we're digging our lithium brines from the environment, without really understanding what all this lithium will do once it's leached out into the environment or what impact the mines themselves will have.

With the recent advances of turning CO2 into other substances, such as propane, should we be focusing more on closing the carbon cycle and simply be producing fossil fuels from the waste products of yesteryear?

Naively, it feels like we understand C, O and H, better than we understand some of the rare metals we're now introducing in the name of climate change.

>>alexch+Ei
EVs also don't solve the other issues with cars.

Like how deadly they are, microplastics and pollution from tire/road wear, noise in residential areas, the huge waste of area, expensive upkeep of infrastructure, how they make cities less inhabitable etc etc.

>>matsem+Ao
> how they make cities less inhabitable

Everyone says they would love to live in a walkable city, but for some reason, at least in the US, the biggest gainers in population over the recent decades have been all automobile-centric cities (which are probably more accurately described as a large patchwork of suburbs). NYC would have shrunk due to out-migration to other places if it wasn't for foreign in-migration[0]. Chicago lost people 15 out of the last 20 years[1].

[0]: https://www.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/about/dcp-p...

[1]: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-census-chicago-me...

>>gottor+TO
Careful: Chicago is a big city, and it's tough to characterize population loss the way you are. The neighborhood that experienced the most population loss over the last 20 years was Auburn-Gresham, which, while "walkable", is not a place a lot of Chicago residents go out of their way to walk in. One large pattern of population shifts in Chicagoland is from the formerly-redlined south and west sides to the south suburbs, or to the southern states.

The parts of Chicago you'd think about when you think "walkable cities" are thriving.