{"id":420949,"date":"2026-01-11T14:15:49","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T13:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=420949"},"modified":"2026-01-11T14:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T13:30:10","slug":"professor-emeritus-criticises-letting-people-choose-whether-to-buy-an-ev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=420949","title":{"rendered":"Professor Emeritus Criticises Letting People Choose Whether to Buy an EV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essay by<\/strong> Eric Worrall<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026 (\u201cletting the market decide\u201d) can\u2019t be the only factor without \u2026 externalities \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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JANUARY 7, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Net Zero: Fantasy, Red Herring, or Reality?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOHN K. WHITE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Falsehoods abound as vested interests distract from the growing dangers, encouraging business as usual to keep oil sales in the black: \u2026 The assault on truth goes unchecked, ensuring that a lucrative hydrocarbon-based economy continues to pay out, rather than providing clean green energy for industry, transportation, and buildings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Others have even done an about-turn, such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose 2021 book How To Avoid A Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have And The Breakthroughs We Need <\/em>sounded promising, but has shown himself to be more interested in making money than stopping an increasingly warming world. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s fire-fuel thinking is retrograde in the extreme, including increased oil subsidies, resurrecting dead coal plants (more than 2 times as expensive as solar), \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the transition is being slowed by private interests and a lunatic American idea that the past is somehow the way forward. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What customers and manufacturers want (\u201cletting the market decide\u201d) can\u2019t be the only factor without including all externalities, such as pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Repealing long-standing fuel-economy standards that increased a woeful miles-per-gallon inefficiency of combustion engines (more completely burning higher-octane gasoline) means more pollution on the streets \u2013 more deaths, disease, and dementia from particulate matter, carbon monoxide, NOx, volatile organic compounds, lead, arsenic, \u2026. Pretending plug-in hybrids are a solution is a red herring that postpones the switch to EVs, doing little to counter toxic pollution and global warming. Hybrids are almost as bad as gasmobiles, while an EV is better for the environment after only\u00a0two years<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John K. White<\/em>,\u00a0a former lecturer in physics and education at University College Dublin and the University of Oviedo. He is the editor of the energy news service\u00a0<\/em>E21NS<\/a>\u00a0and author of\u00a0<\/em>The Truth About Energy:\u00a0Our Fossil-Fuel Addiction and the Transition to Renewables<\/a>\u00a0(Cambridge University Press, 2024) and\u00a0<\/em>Do The Math!: On Growth, Greed, and Strategic Thinking<\/a>\u00a0(Sage, 2013). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He can be reached at:\u00a0<\/em>johnkingstonwhite@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more:\u00a0https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2026\/01\/07\/net-zero-fantasy-red-herring-or-reality\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Externalities are costs or benefits which affect a party who is not directly involved in a transaction. For example, if a mine dumps all its toxic waste into a nearby river, the mine benefits by minimising its cost of disposing of the waste. But everyone downstream off that mine has just had their water supply poisoned. The externality in this case is the illness and ruined crops caused by the toxic pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not all externalities are negative. A significant externality of CO2 emissions is more vigorous crop growth. Farmers don\u2019t have to pay everyone else to emit CO2, but they benefit from a substantial CO2 fertilisation effect caused by those emissions which their ancestors did not enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Global Greening From Higher CO2 Hits \u201cStriking\u201d New Heights \u2013 but the Mainstream Media Won\u2019t Tell You About It<\/a><\/blockquote>