Editor,
In his two previous columns, Matt Grocott has criticized the state’s shift toward clean, electric vehicles. His argument seems largely ideological — consumers should have the “freedom” to purchase whatever vehicles they prefer and manufacturers should be able to satisfy that demand. At no point, however, does Mr. Grocott acknowledge, let alone dispute, the two primary reasons for the move to EVs — global climate change and air pollution.
Climate change, primarily caused by humans, is making the Earth uninhabitable (and expensive). Climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Sixty percent of greenhouse gas emissions in San Mateo County come from the transportation sector: primarily cars and trucks. If we care about climate change, we must move away from traditional, dirty vehicles and power our vehicles with clean energy. (Most local residents get their electricity from Peninsula Clean Energy, which offers 50% and 100% renewable sources.)
According to the American Lung Association (lung.org/research/sota/city-rankings/states/california/san-mateo), almost 60,000 (8%) San Mateo County residents have asthma, many of them children. Childhood asthma rates are higher in the lower income and diverse neighborhoods adjacent to highways. These kids are not being served by the “free market” and, thus, the government needs to take action to keep them healthy via cleaner cars.
Feel free to make ideological arguments based on “freedom,” but please acknowledge the real costs of this liberty.
Mike Swire
Hillsborough
The letter writer is a member of the San Mateo County Transportation Authority, Citizen Advisory Committee (speaking for himself, not for the committee).
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(9) comments
Hey Mike - "Climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions", says who? your circle of group thinkers? Don't state your unproven cause as a fact. Credibility is important and please don't further indoctrinate our already jaded readers. Thanks.
"Jaded readers"? Like, - you?
Here we go again… “Climate change, primarily caused by humans…”? So, Mr. Swire, Mother Nature has only a small part? I’m glad you think humankind has that much power but we all know better. Meanwhile, let’s see how this EV thing is working out… EV bus company Proterra going bankrupt, EV owners requested to not charge their vehicles during times of high electrical demand, half of CA’s electricity being provided by fossil-fuels, no future ability to provide enough electricity if we embrace an EV-only car culture, unsold EVs piling up on car lots and in an EV graveyard in China, and the list goes on. I guess all these folks also dispute the primary reasons for the move to EVs. Let’s not get into the emissions caused by building the train-to-nowhere.
What is the metric to use so that we know our climate change policies here in San Mateo County have worked? If they make no difference, do we just continue what we are doing or reevaluate?
Exactly! San Mateo County has stopped taking stock in their Carbon Emissions in 2015 (the year they founded PCE to start the 'greenwashing').
What "green" politician would agree to stop taking and checking data like this ... if it really was that important to them:
https://performance.smcgov.org/stories/s/RICAPS/xzkp-fn3v/
San Mateo County never had any real climate change policies anyways. On the contrary openly YIMBY and NIMBY politicians in San Mateo want to remove high-density transportation options (aka bike lanes) from a low-income community. They only want to look 'green' and 'equitable' - but they are anything but. The county found it in their hearts to spend $600M on 101 express lanes for the rich, but is cancelling important Ped/Bike bridges across 101 to bring communities together.
Thank you Mr. Swire, well put. People can have the "Freedom" to buy whatever gas guzzler they personally prefer, and yet the history has been to limit people's ability (and "freedom") to purchase an EV. The "freedom" line is a product of the PR divisions of the oil industry and auto manufacturers. Remember the General Motors EV1, produced from 1996 to 1999? People loved it, but you could only lease them and when GM realized what a threat it was to the industry, they recalled them all and killed the project. Also, in the 1950s, the entire LA streetcar system was bought up and killed by a coalition of auto and oil companies. They did not want Angelenos to have the freedom to to anything but drive their cars.
Westy - please do your homework before you spout inaccuracies. "They did not want Angelenos to have the freedom to to anything but drive their cars" It was not the cars but the conspiracy of GM and Firestone to promote buses. The same happened in San Francisco with the Key system and elsewhere in the world. Suddenly metropolitan zones are rediscovering the benefits of what are now called light rail systems. Unfortunately, they have also become attractive to derelicts and the homeless so the systems are scaring off paying users in most of the USA. Wonder why the roads are so crowded?
Oh thanks Dirk, sure I'll go do some more homework. But seriously, point is, the "freedom" line is generally only applied in terms of large corporations having the freedom to make more money, at the expense of the environment and society.
'Climate Denial' got out of fashion once all oil companies did acknowledge their scientist had better data since the 1970s than most environmentalists had. Once you have the confessions of all these former CEOs of Shell, Exxon, BP, etc. we don't need these old Russian bots trying to spread old fake news. It was BP that invented the term "Carbon Footprint" to put the responsibility to change onto every single person and away from them.
Of course the EV isn't THE solution either. It only solves one problem, local air pollution. It does NOT even fix one other traffic problem. The larger the battery pack the more years it takes to break-even with the carbon emissions.
Freedom of Choice could be kept if both EV and ICE cars pay the real damage they do to our infrastructure. Taxes should be paid based on car weight, size, and lifecycle carbon emissions. Subsidies need to be stopped. Parking spots should never be free. This is capitalism, remember. And then public and active transportation could compete on price and time, like they did before Ford and GM did all their damage to the American transportation system.
Peninsula Clean Energy does not provide 50-100% clean energy because PCE is neither a supplier nor provider nor anything other than an advertising company. PCE buys "bragging rights" called RECs.
PCE's power sources are missing the most important feature to be taken seriously: Additionality
Without "Additionality" all PCE is doing is 'greenwashing'. Or in other words. Has anybody ever seen a wind turbine in San Mateo County - a county with a long coastline and superb wind conditions for producing wind energy.
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