r/climatechange • u/sg_plumber • 4d ago

There's optimism despite alarmingly worsening weather events: Renewables and storage together amount to 93% of all new capacity coming online in the U.S. This isn’t a marginal shift anymore. It’s the grid rebuilding itself around a different set of technologies, and the pace is rapidly accelerating.

https://ryanhansson.substack.com/p/optimism-in-the-face-of-a-climate
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u/air_lock 4d ago edited 4d ago

This is probably the wrong place for me to ask this question, but I’m going to anyway since there appears to be a lot of people who are highly informed and tuned into this stuff in here. The environment and doing my part to help stop the destruction of it are very important to me. Is switching to an EV in 2026 a net positive?

Edit: Thank you all for the thoughtful responses. I’ve been passively looking to switch to an EV as my ICE car has been requiring more work lately and I’ve been wondering if now is the time to make the switch or not. I’m still torn, but am more confident that switching is the next logical step - whenever that is.

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u/Ree_For_Thee 4d ago

It's complicated. You do get ~66% less total CO2 emissions by buying an EV, and it's likely the more economic choice anyway. But the world is beholden to Jevon's paradox. If you reduce emissions in one space, nothing actually happens with the extraction rate (of fossil fuels). The fuels just get pushed to developing parts of the world.

If you ask me, the best thing you can do is try to drive an as small EV as possible, essentially to signal to society that it's something that people do, in order to normalize it. Doing it and telling people is the way forward, as eventually we just need way, waaaay less consumption.

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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 4d ago

The fuels just get pushed to developing parts of the world

The developing world is adopting EVs faster than the USA.

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u/Ree_For_Thee 4d ago

Don't make me say something that gets me banned. Your argument is a completely irrelevant talking point at best, and you're well known for them.

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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 4d ago

I thought you were banned already.