This commentary is by Georgi de Rham, who has lived and worked in Chittenden County for four years. She works in agriculture and food distribution.
I commend Alison Despathy’s recent criticism of the electric vehicle surge, particularly her attention to the human rights issues and environmental hazards that accompany cobalt and lithium mining.
However, John Greenberg raises an excellent counterpoint in his Dec. 13 letter to the editor, noting that we must move on from our reliance on fossil fuels and imploring us to consider “the environmental and human consequences of maintaining the status quo.”
Perhaps the status quo in question is not fossil fuel use in and of itself, but our reliance on the systems that generate and necessitate our insatiable appetite for energy — whether that’s in the form of fossil fuels or electrification. While transitioning from fossil fuels to hybrid or electric energy is perhaps the lesser of two evils when it comes to personal vehicles, I’m shocked that there hasn’t been a more comprehensive review of our reliance on fossil fuels in the first place and the long-term ramifications of living with such high energy demands, particularly in the transportation sector.
Rare earth minerals are rare, and it’s not rocket science to comprehend that they too will eventually cease to be a viable solution for our society’s enormous energy needs. While we scramble to replace fossil fuels with other energy sources, I fear there is insufficient conversation about how we became so reliant on them in the first place.
Rather than an electric revolution, I would love to see lasting, meaningful investment in alternative transportation infrastructure and public transportation, coupled with urban planning that not only supports but rewards a life lived outside of a personal vehicle.
Over decades, American cities have developed to reward the use of a car for even the shortest of errands. Our roads, our city centers, and even our cultural identity caters to the automobile, so it makes sense that our first instinct is to electrify the system we already have in place, especially when we’re used to accepting that a vehicle is necessary for work, food, pleasure, and even freedom itself.
Furthermore, I would be remiss to ignore the power and influence of the automobile industry, which stands to continue netting large profits if we remain reliant on cars, electric or otherwise.
Moving away from a car-centric society, particularly in a rural state like Vermont, is a shift of seismic proportions that moves against deeply established systems of transportation, economy and capital. It’s no wonder electric vehicles are so popular and heavily incentivized — it’s easier to outsource lithium mining than it is to radically transform how the nation thinks about getting around.
However, it may be time to begin that radical thought. As Dipesh Chakrabarty writes in his 2009 essay “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” “(t)he mansion of modern freedoms stands on an ever-expanding base of fossil-fuel use.”
We may delude ourselves in thinking we can support that mansion through electrification, and thereby unwittingly exchange one ill for another. Rather than scramble to preserve the crumbling mansion, perhaps it’s time to consider building a new house in the search for a more free and equitable environmental future.
