{"id":87123,"date":"2023-01-23T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/airvore-ou-le-mythe-des-transports-propres-chronique-dune-pollution-annoncee\/"},"modified":"2024-10-31T14:24:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T13:24:15","slug":"airvore-ou-le-mythe-des-transports-propres-chronique-dune-pollution-annoncee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/airvore-ou-le-mythe-des-transports-propres-chronique-dune-pollution-annoncee\/","title":{"rendered":"Airvore, or the Myth of Clean Transportation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An updated and expanded edition of Laurent Castaign\u00e8de\u2019s earlier Airvore ou la face obscure des transports [Airvore, or the Dark Side of Transportation][1]<\/a><\/sup><\/em> (Montreal: \u00c9cosoci\u00e9t\u00e9, 2018), this book aims to dispel the myth \u2014 currently in vogue in this age of incentivization to switch to electric cars \u2014 that there could be such a thing as clean vehicles.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The first part details the history of motorized transport, from Denis Papin\u2019s seventeenth-century steam digester to the auto boom in the second half of the twentieth century. Between 1950 and 1970, the total share of air pollution from transportation emissions rose from one-half to three-quarters. Regulations caused the main pollutant emissions (in wealthy countries) to decrease between 1980 and 2000, but nitrogen oxide (NOx<\/sub><\/em>) and particulate matter (PM) pollution has persisted in Europe, due to its continued dependence on diesel. Human responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions harmful to the climate was also established during this period, starting with the 1990 publication of the First Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But global mobility continues to increase, with the number of vehicles on the road doubling worldwide between 2000 and 2020, primarily in developing countries for that period. It seems inevitable that mobility will have to be reimagined in light of all the premature deaths caused by pollution, traffic, and climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second part, Castaign\u00e8de shows that, given the mobility boom, with the number of vehicles on the road set to rise from 1.1 billion in 2020 to 1.8 billion in 2040, it is hardly likely that transportation will become less noxious, cleaner, and more energy efficient. Average vehicle weight continued to climb between 2000 and 2020, with gas-guzzling SUVs leading automaker sales. In addition, recent studies have shown that half the particles emitted by vehicles are not released by exhaust but by brakes and tire wear, among other factors. So, even without tailpipe emissions, electric cars will still emit these types of particulate matter, alongside emissions from infrastructure[2]<\/a><\/sup> and from vehicle and fuel production. Moreover, upstream fuel emissions can only increase with oil that is more complicated to extract and the use of extremely polluting unconventional oils. Electricity is also highly polluting since coal-fired power plants are the world\u2019s leading source of electricity production.[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, an electric car charged by electricity deriving from the latest generation of coal-fired power plant will produce emissions in the same range as would newer combustion-engine cars (Euro 5 or 6 standards). For older-generation coal-fired power plants without pollutant abatement, the indirect emissions from the \u201cfuel\u201d would be, depending on the type of emission, 10 to 1,000 times higher than for a car with an internal combustion engine. Consequently, the author questions the wisdom of replacing all road vehicles with electric ones, not only due to the predominant method of electricity production, but also due to the difficulty of rapidly producing batteries, which will require greater mining of metals already heavily in demand for electronic storage. Plus, the energy impact of manufacturing vehicle batteries is quickly offset only if the vehicles are used very frequently, such as delivery vehicles or taxis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The roll-out of self-driving cars, in addition to increasing electromagnetic pollution, could lead to more individual car trips vying with soft mobility and public transportation, and to greater traffic and new infrastructures. This could be the worst technological mistake in automotive history, unless the new technology were developed as a regulated shared taxicab service, in cities where individual driving would be prohibited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There can be no effective fight against climate change without curbing emissions from the transportation sector (which accounts for 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions). However, technological breakthroughs are marginal or even counterproductive where they generate a rebound effect.[4]<\/a><\/sup> The author concludes with eight sets of measures to curb motorized transport:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Display actual vehicle emissions in real time and halt vehicle use as soon as an unacceptable threshold is reached. Such data would be recorded and accessible to regulatory authorities and repair shops. Automakers could retain ownership of engines and their pollution control systems, which would then be leased to the customer, to ensure the upgradability of vehicles in their lifetime.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Harmonize the taxation of all fuels, at least at the European scale, so that their price reflects their environmental impacts. For cars, hybridization would involve limiting battery size to optimize consumption and polluting emissions. In the long run, green hydrogen, renewable natural gas (biomethane), or second- or third-generation agrofuels could become the main fuels for long-distance road or maritime travel.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Limit fuel waste by restricting vehicle performance (speed, weight, size, horsepower), or even by automatically limiting speed by geolocation. For aviation, it is proposed to reduce flight altitudes to 23,000 feet to eliminate contrails, and to reduce flight speed to 375 miles per hour, which would cut fuel consumption by a quarter and emissions by half.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Promote the collective use of transportation via car sharing or car pooling through a surcharge for \u201cautosolism\u201d[5]<\/a><\/sup> (via dedicated lanes and tolls). Roadways could be financed solely by cars and trucks, leaving the public sector to fund only soft mobility and public transportation. Occasional users could be granted an annual flat-rate exemption, and commuting costs would be covered by employers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Raise awareness on fuel efficiency, for example by rethinking the aims of motorsports competitions and focusing on drivers\u2019 ability to reduce their fuel consumption or to exploit limited battery life. More radically, prohibit the promotion of energy-intensive or highly polluting means of transportation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Simply limit the number of cars on the road by setting a worldwide cap, in order to force automakers to focus on sustainable renewal of their vehicles.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Protect the world\u2019s remaining coal, oil, and gas reserves by declaring them a World Heritage Site, or alternatively introduce a carbon tax at the source of these reserves to curb the supply of fossil fuels.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Sanction ecocide in the courts. In democratic systems, the independence of the judiciary from the executive branch of government could be used to counteract industrial lobbies as a last line of defense.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Many of the proposals in this book raise questions about how feasible they would be to implement. The critical point of the book is that, without energy efficiency and streamlining transport use, \u201cairvorous\u201d transportation, insidious as it is with its invisible pollution that harms people and the climate alike, could well devour our air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This article has been translated from French and edited by Cadenza Academic Translations.
    Translator: Nicholas Lo Vecchio, Editor: Zahira Ransome, Senior editor: Mark Mellor<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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      Castaign\u00e8de<\/span> Laurent (with a preface by Philippe Bihouix), Airvore ou le mythe des transports propres. Chronique d\u2019une pollution annonc\u00e9e,<\/em> Montreal: \u00c9cosoci\u00e9t\u00e9, October 2022, 424 p.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n \n \n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

      Castaign\u00e8de\u2019s use of \u2018airvore\u2019 plays on \u2018carnivore,\u2019 \u2018herbivore,\u2019 etc. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    2. \n

      These increased by over 35 percent in the decade 2000\u20132010 (according to the International Energy Agency), with China and India accounting for over half of the additional capacity. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    3. \n

      Accounting for over 36 percent in 2021, on the rise since 2020. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    4. \n

      Because they cause people to drive more or consume more energy in another form (e.g<\/em>., telecommuting after moving to a bigger house that is more remote and requires more energy to heat). \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    5. \n

      The use of a car by a single person (the driver). \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      An updated and expanded edition of Laurent Castaign\u00e8de\u2019s earlier Airvore ou la face obscure des transports [Airvore, or the Dark Side of Transportation][1] (Montreal: \u00c9cosoci\u00e9t\u00e9, 2018), this book aims to dispel the myth \u2014 currently in vogue in this age of incentivization to switch to electric cars \u2014 that there could be such a thing … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":62118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[202,212],"keyword":[1251,1543,1064],"class_list":["post-87123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-read-seen-heard","tag-environnement-en","tag-societe-en","keyword-transition-en","keyword-pollution-en","keyword-transport-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87123"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99203,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87123\/revisions\/99203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87123"},{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=87123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}