Bimmerboy said:
Honestly, I find these "hey, let's all get off fossil fuels!" discussions not even to be interesting academic fantasies. So much regarding the complexity of human existence is never factored in by most proponents, and the motive always boils down to the same old socialist message...
Man is greedy, man is selfish, and ultimately, evil. Mankind needs to be controlled and limited, by means guilt and self-abasement, with a little helping hand from the government.
I truly do not buy into the notion that these types of discussions are innoccous, however well veiled the intentions are.
I feel I need to point out that while capitalism isn't always inherently evil like many on the left seem to think, the free market doesn't necessarily give what's best for the consumer without government intervention. Rather, it gives what's best for the bottom line. Occasionally, that does happen to also be the best product. More often than not, though, it's a bug-ridden product designed to maximize the income stream of whoever produces it.
Cars are an excellent case in point. They're like the ink-jets of transportation. The car is sold, often at a relatively small profit margin, safe in the knowledge that plenty of money will be made over its life in spare parts, oil, gasoline, tires, and other "consumables". Besides cars, everything related to road transportation seems to be maintenance intensive. Roads are always seemingly in need of repaving, the police and hospitals are kept busy thanks to the daily carnage. While the auto industry doesn't profit from all of these activities they are nevertheless part of a status quo which complains anytime there is any suggestion of changing things in a way in which they would be left out of the loop. While EVs wouldn't change road maintenance or reduce accidents, they would drastically reduce the spare parts business, put loads of mechanics out of work, put most gas stations out of business, and so forth. Would EVs be better for the consumer? Well, everyone who has owned one certainly thinks so. Unless you're a traveling salesman the lack of quick refueling (the only real drawback) is pretty much immaterial for 99% of trips. And even that drawback is corrected with new batteries recently developed.
The wholesale dismantling of public transportation is another good example. Trolley lines were bought up by GM and replaced with buses not because the buses were inherently better. The biggest advantage touted was that the bus route could change readily as passenger demand changed. Nevermind that many trolley routes were the same for years because ridership patterns remained the same and could be expanded/changed as needed fairly easily by using already existing track. Outside of that supposed advantage, the buses were worse in every way compared to the trolleys they replaced. They rode less smoothly, they smelled, they required frequent maintenance, they cost more overall to operate, they were less safe, they were far slower (trolleys/interurbans regularly ran at up to 80 to 100 mph on dedicated tracks in rural areas while buses were going at best 50 mph plus stopping for traffic). The only ones the buses were better for were GM, whoever sold tires, whoever sold diesel fuel, mechanics unions, and so forth. They certainly didn't represent a better way of traveling for the general public. In fact, many former trolley routes lost huge numbers of riders after they were converted to bus for exactly the reasons I mentioned. If the fare was more and the service poorer that's a recipe for losing customers. Of course, GM et al said the ridership loss was because the general public
wanted cars, not public transportation. The airline industry did pretty much a similar thing to the intercity railroads (although here at least planes did at least provide a speed advantage even if everything else about them was a negative compared to taking the train).
In short, GM brilliantly engineered a master plan to get the public into cars over a generation. However, even this master plan wouldn't have succeeded had government not allowed the systematic dismantling of valuable public transportation infrastructure nor funded the Interstate highway system. Why did they do so? I honestly believe at the time most of our representatives actually thought it in the best interests of the public thanks to the brilliant marketing of the auto and aeroplane as the solutions to all our transportation ills. There probably wasn't a conspiracy, but rather just extreme shortsightedness combined with the profit motive. In fact, I find it ironic that those who are against the government forcing transportation alternatives now don't realize that the same government had a huge hand in pushing private over public transportation 50 years ago.
That takes us to where we are today. Putting aside global warming since some here are still not 100% sold on it, we now
know that cars and planes spew emissions which cause 600,000 cancer deaths a year in the US alone. We
know these emissions also cause damaging acid rain. We
know the particulates in these emissions aggravate asthma and dirty our environment. We
know driving autos on long commutes creates stress which causes many health problems. We
know auto usage contributes to obesity. We
know the congestion and confusion autos create makes cities less liveable. We
know that auto accidents kill about 50,000, injure 2 million, and cause billions of dollars in lost productivity. We
know that oil supplies are finite and that we'll need to wage war to secure what we'll need if we continue to be dependent upon them. We know all these things yet we are still very resistant to changing the status quo even a little because a wealthy minority would suffer even if most would benefit.
The hard fact is that a capitalist economy can't be left alone in the hope that it will do what's best for the people. Along the same lines of thought, government by itself can't be trusted 100% to do what's right. Rather, you need private industry with government oversight, and independent studies done by those who derive no benefit from skewing results one way or the other. Take what happened with transfats as a good example of a public/private partnership. Numerous studies have confirmed that transfats cause obesity and heart disease. This wasn't even open to debate any more. Nevertheless, until food manufacturers were specifically forced to label transfats few actually did anything about removing them from their foods since the general public wouldn't be aware they were present. After the labeling took effect, more and more foods were touted as transfat-free. This change cost very little to implement yet if not for government regulation it most likely would never have taken place. This wasn't a heavy-handed regulation, either. It merely required independent labeling of transfat content, not a complete ban on it. However, in NYC a ban on transfats will take effect this year on restaurants largely because they aren't required to label their foods, and therefore have refused to eliminate transfats on their own.
Maybe a similar free market with government oversight approach for automobiles might be labeling cars with a "cancer deaths per 100,000 miles" right alongside the EPA mileage combined with a zero emissions requirement in major cities (although frankly I'd like a complete ban on cars in major cities). The government wouldn't favor one technology over another, just require that the vehicle be zero emissions. You could even use an internal combustion engine to meet such a law if you add a means for capturing all the exhaust. Then again, if we also had some sorely needed noise limits on cars we might well obsolete internal combustion engines regardless. Anyway, the orderly transition to non-fossil fuels that you envision once fossil fuels run out will never take place unless we start giving alternatives a market advantage via regulation right now. The hard fact is that the general public would easily be sold on EVs if only someone would make them but the free market won't without a push from government because too many entrenched special interests would lose.
