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Old 09-23-2019, 01:21 PM   #6981 (permalink)
redpoint5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4 View Post
I don't think electric vehicles do jack to save the planet, but it seems the cult of climatology believes everyone else should be forced to drive one. Look at our own climate justice virtue signalers here. Only 1 of them drives an electric, but they all think everyone else should be buying them.
I saw a where small town in Maine is installing a bunch of solar panels in a pointless virtue signaling move. The panels are going in a small clearing with Forrest on 3 sides and the panels will be buried in snow for at least 4 months out of the year and barely see any sun for half the year.
Just because solar panels will only work for a few months out of the year and are never going to be economical up north isn't a reason not to buy them, it's all about virtue signaling.
You have to spend other people's money in the proper politically motivated way to show how much you fake care about the environment.
I'm sure EVs do some immeasurably small thing to affect climate change, as nearly everything has an affect on nearly everything else, but your overall point stands that it isn't enough, and often misused to signal superior virtue and shame others.

There's a ground-installed collection of solar panels in a small farmer's field where I drive by. Probably 1/3 of the panel is blocked by weeds that were allowed to grow in front, and this is Oregon, so out of the 8 good daytime hours per day, about half of those are rainy/overcast. I see many instances of suboptimal installation here, presumably because the systems were subsidized heavily and hastily installed. Then there's the fact that anywhere in the rainy valley is a poor location for PV. On top of all that, the vast majority of our electricity is already among the cleanest and cheapest; hydro.

All that said, and even granted the virtue signaling, I do believe most in the extreme end of the climate change prevention camp have good intentions. It may be cult-ish, and they may have bad ideas, but I'm not going to ascribe ill-intent on them.

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Last edited by redpoint5; 09-23-2019 at 01:40 PM..