this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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That's a problem, but small/micro particles aren't the only metric. The gases released by exhaust are also a real problem for people that walk nearby cars, and they're in a big quantity in certain cars.
But yea, balancing all of this is complicated.
Does having heavier electric cars with no exhaust but more tire usage (because heavier cars) so more particles in the air beneficial? I don't believe we have serious studies about this, but it could change the meta.
Hear me out here, less cars regardless of their enegry source will reduce both exhaust and microplastics. We don't have to trade one for the other when we can build alternatives that don't produce either.
Yea, sure, but cars are still needed in many areas outside of cities
In rural areas or in small villages, it's basically the only real good option, or for someone in a city to reach those areas in a timely manner
I do believe that public transport should be way more developed in cities, to the point where it becomes more worth it to go by public transport than in a car (ex: Paris)
And alternatives will always cause some sort of pollution. Way way less, but not zero.
Those areas don't have nearly as high a concentration of these pollutants as a busy, 6 lane road the center of the city. Thats where improving air quality can matter the most, especially because that road is likely to have more pedestrians breathing the pollutants than a rural road.
And on this I agree. But I still think for the air we breathe, the old polluting cars should go. I’d love a future where public transportation is way more developed and used, and the only remaining cars are electric or at least efficient (bye bye diesel)
Particulates are bad, sure, but they're not what's causing climate collapse.
Climate collapse should more accurately be called global ecological collapse. Emissions are only one part of the problem, and the hyper focus on emissions allows other problems like plastics or habitat destruction to go unsolved. They’re all connected though. Our ability to fight climate change is intricately connected to how healthy the global ecology is.
Deforestation, as a going public concern, has fallen entirely off the radar.
Nobody (in national leadership in Western states) seems concerned with the role desertification is having on the carbon cycle. Nevermind the massive ecological destruction in the oceans and the feedback loop that creates
Emissions are a large part of what's causing the habitat destruction, depending on where, specifically, you're talking about. For instance, the warming oceans are caused by the increasing CO2 levels, and warming oceans and ice cap melt is causing massive changes in weather patterns, which in turn, is leading to droughts, floods, increased wildfires, more and stronger hurricanes, etc. Deforestation in the Amazon is still an ongoing problem, although I understand that the president of Brasil has instituted a program that takes land back from ppl that illegally burned forests to turn it into grazing land. (I think seizing the cattle would help too; the large-scale rancher that do that need to be bankrupted.) Microplastics are definitely A problem, but I don't think that we know how much of a problem they are yet, in that we're not entirely sure how increasing levels of microplastics in animals, etc. is going to affect them in the long term.
True, and I don't mean to downplay the destruction of emissions. I'm just saying that emissions are often used as the yardstick for sustainability, when the picture is so much bigger. But the people in charge will never admit that because when you look at the problem ecologically, the real solution is to abandon the current economic system that requires constant growth and ever more resources to exploit, all while chasing the bottom dollar and cutting corners to get there.