Are we solarpunk yet ?

I understand your perspective, and I appreciate the discussion. In France, there are multiple scenarios and budgets that can support these initiatives. In fact, many of the ideas I’ve proposed have already been implemented quickly in places I’ve lived:

• Removing Parking Spaces for Trees: This is currently being done in Paris.
• Free and Better Public Transportation: Public transport is completely free for inhabitants of Montpellier.
• Increasing Bike Lanes: In Montpellier, during the COVID-19 period, they simply used paint and cones to separate old car lanes from the rest of the traffic. The only measure that might face significant budget issues is subsidizing trains and buses. However, this could be funded by introducing or increasing taxes on plane tickets and car ownership. These policies are not authoritarian; they are similar to enforcing seatbelt use, banning smoking in public places or increasing taxes on tobacco.

I understand your argument comparing meat reduction to EVs, but I believe it’s flawed, at least in my country. The EV sector is heavily subsidized to encourage people to switch their vehicles as soon as possible. We could even argue that the carbon footprint associated with the early replacement of functioning vehicles, driven by fear of ICE vehicle restrictions, should be considered in the total cost.

No worries, thank you for caring! I often worry about being wrong, so I don’t comment too often, but I don’t have any bad feelings. We’re all on the same side of the fight, and there’s no need to go against each other.

Regarding transportation alone, there are multiple ways we can greatly improve the situation:

• Remove some parking spaces in the city to plant trees instead (reducing traffic).
• Subsidize trains and buses for long-distance travel.
• Provide free and better public transportation in cities (more lanes/modalities, more frequent service, dedicated lanes, and priority for buses, etc.).
• Increase the number of bike lanes (this can be done quickly in some cities by closing a car lane). All of these actions can be implemented quickly and don’t require more academic research or the setup of new and complex factories, mines, and logistics.

Outside of transportation, there are even more impactful actions that can be taken without relying on new technology. For example, ADEME (a French organization) estimates that: “A reduction in average meat consumption of 10 grams per day per person leads to a decrease of approximately 200 square meters in land footprint, as well as a 5.2% reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions.” (Source). You can also look at projects around the Circular Economy and the Low Tech movement. Of course, some of these initiatives might involve building new software or hardware, but these things are doable now (for example, there are projects focused on tracking products precisely to improve the circular economy) and don’t rely on future discoveries.

In fact, when considering multiple possible scenarios (like France’s Transition 2050), those that don’t rely on technosolutionism are often the most efficient and certain to work. Finally, one of the reasons I find it important to talk about this is that relying on future tech can be a great source of disengagement and indifference, leading people to believe that they don’t have a role to play in this situation.

I get your point, and it’s great to see such fast improvements. But we shouldn’t bet the future of the planet on potential breakthroughs. It seems way more sensible to act on what we know works now rather than hoping for future discoveries to save us. It’s like counting on nuclear fusion to fix everything.

Given how urgent the situation is, we need to hit 2 tons of CO2 equivalent per person per year by 2050, and we’re not even close, it makes more sense, in my opinion, to focus on what we can do right now.

In the current state of things, there is no infinite future to consider, just an increasingly dangerous and potentially irreversible one.

Thank you for your question!

As I said in my message, EVs are not an improvement in my opinion if you just use them as replacements for current cars without any significant changes in our current usage of personal transportation. They are not the same, but they both present higher emissions profiles than public transportation when considering lifecycle analysis studies. EVs do offset a lot of their emissions in the manufacturing and end-of-life parts of their lifecycle. It also relies on the assumption that we will one day be able to produce enough renewable energy to power every vehicle, we do not have this capacity yet. You should also take into account for your analysis that sustaining a world with EVs as a drop-in replacement for ICE vehicles would require extracting significantly more rare earth metals than we currently do, requiring new mines that are known to impact biodiversity through significant earth and water pollution (not all environmental impacts are CO2-based). I think you will find that Philippe Bihouix’s book “The Age of Low Tech” or Guillaume Pitron’s “The Rare Metals War” explain this concept very well.

I think I do understand your point, but I maintain that technology alone will not bring a sustainable world; it is our behaviors and societies that need to be changed. Technological improvements are also often subject to Jevons paradox (or the rebound effect), which needs to be factored in before stating that switching to EVs will bring long-term and sustainable improvement. That is why I think it would be a lie to say that EVs are a sustainable alternative to maintain the same car-centric lifestyle, as we have no such certainty.

I hope this clarifies my point of view!

I would say that the scam around EVs is that it is not an improvement for the environment if one just replaces classic SUVs with electric ones. We need to move away from the car centered life. EV though can be a building block for a cleaner public transportation system or a personal vehicle for people in remote areas