NO ELECTRIC VEHICLES ON A DEAD PLANET

March 30, 2024

xrnyc_press@unitedrebellion.com

“NO ELECTRIC VEHICLES ON A DEAD PLANET”: CLIMATE ACTIVISTS DISRUPT NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL AUTO SHOW TO PROTEST ELECTRIC CARS

Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York City – Extinction Rebellion protestors interrupted the opening ceremony of the New York International Auto Show this morning, warning that there are "no EVs on a dead planet," and demanding acknowledgement that while the automobile industry sells electric vehicles as a climate solution, they are in fact not a solution at all.

Electric vehicles do not solve the fundamental problems with cars. The construction of electric vehicles is as carbon-intensive, if not more so, than that of conventional cars powered by fossil fuels. More important, cars themselves damage the climate in many ways above and beyond their gas consumption. Cars are constructed out of materials that are very difficult to produce. The excessive steel in cars is incredibly climate-unfriendly to produce. The many superfluous electronics in cars contain rare earth metals and require expensive, shipping-intensive manufacturing processes. The fact that cars are heavier and larger than they need to be means that all cars, including electric ones, are incompatible with a livable future.

President Biden is promoting and stimulating investment in electric cars, presenting them as a solution to climate catastrophe. This ignores the fact that electric vehicles bring a host of new problems, and do not address the vast majority of problems arising from the use of fossil-fuel-powered cars. Residents of car-dependent cities and suburbs are forced to drive small distances in extremely overweight and oversized vehicles. A switch of propulsion does not resolve this issue, nor does it resolve that of carbon-expensive roadway maintenance. Electric vehicles are a popular investment because they don’t disrupt the status quo; most automotive material suppliers are entirely unaffected by the shift to electric vehicles.

XR is not protesting car lovers or driving hobbyists. Those forced to drive because of car-dependent infrastructure are being told that they can help solve climate change by switching to an electric vehicle.The truth is that unchecked car production, no matter the type of propulsion, is pushing us towards extinction.

WHY “NO EVs ON A DEAD PLANET?”

Automobile production-as-usual won't be possible on Earth if humanity fails to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. If we continue at our current pace of production expansion, there won’t be enough resources to meet car production demand, EV and gas-powered alike.

Construction of an electric vehicle requires immense amounts of resources that are rare and difficult to obtain. Steel, electronics, batteries (and the lithium they contain), and the concrete and asphalt infrastructure cars require, all involve extremely high-emission production. For every EV produced, 900 kg of highly polluting coal-based steel will be used, which will then go unrecycled due to copper contamination from wiring in EVs. The steel industry, already responsible for 11% of global CO2 emissions and over 10% of global resource extraction, is set to triple in size by 2050, with this growth driven primarily by the auto industry.

Lithium mining is also causing disastrous environmental damage throughout the world, as well as human rights abuses. Lithium batteries are not yet recyclable, and their lifespans are short. Swapping out oil extraction for a different extraction is not a net improvement. As with oil, the resources required for EV production are finite.

In Nevada, Thacker Pass (known as Peehee Mu’huh in Paiute), a vast nature preserve, has the largest known lithium deposit in the country and one of the largest in the world. Following a month of nonviolent protests at the site, six activists are facing lawsuits from Lithium Nevada Corporation. This is an attempt to suppress constitutionally protected free speech and protest. In a groundbreaking move for the American legal system, the defense is asserting a biodiversity necessity defense.

DEMANDS

A discussion of demands and solutions requires a collective understanding of the issue. The biggest boosters of electric vehicles fail to grasp the climate catastrophe unfolding before our eyes. Fossil fuels are major drivers of climate change, but electric cars have dozens of components that are extracted from the earth in unsustainable ways. If all current automobile production were to go electric, the issue of cars’ unsustainability would remain.

To discuss benefits and drawbacks of electric vehicles, we first need to understand the global context. Any discussion of smaller or lighter vehicles or of mass transit alternatives is impossible absent of agreed-upon baseline facts. Industries building and promoting these alternatives are being sidelined because the US government and auto manufacturers claim that electric cars are significantly better for the environment than gas-powered cars.

See Twitter post here.
See photos and videos here. We own these videos, you have permission to use them, with attribution to Extinction Rebellion NYC.

QUOTES

“We are not protesting car lovers, we are protesting car dependence. The vast majority of auto-based emissions, during both production and use, are caused not by people who want to drive, but by those who have no choice but to drive,” said Mark Graham, an Extinction Rebellion activist who participated in the action.
“Electric vehicles don’t solve the real problem with cars: wastefully large infrastructure, needlessly complex and resource-intensive construction, and energy inefficiency, even in the case of electric cars. Switching every car on American roads to electric will not move the needle on climate catastrophe”, said Miles Grant, an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson.
“The push to shift to EVs would have been useful in the 1970s, but now it’s too late. We need bigger changes and we need these changes on a timeline that reflects our reality,” said Jack Baldwin, an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson.
“Electric vehicles are a popular investment because they don’t disrupt the status quo. Most automotive material suppliers are entirely unaffected by a shift to electric vehicles,” said Miles Grant, an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson.
“As climate catastrophe gets worse, the production of electric vehicles will only grow more complicated and expensive. Instead of pretending that a switch to electric vehicles will solve our problems, we need to address the underlying problems,” said Laura Robinson, an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson.
“Electric vehicles solve none of the fundamental flaws of the automobile, while introducing an entirely new set of logistical issues and complications, owing to their extensive reliance on lithium, steel, and electricity”, said John Mark Rozendaal, an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson.
“US government policy is presenting EVs as the solution to climate change. EVs will hardly make a dent in the catastrophe already unfolding before us”, said Will Regan, an Extinction Rebellion activist who participated in the action.
“Our infrastructure is needlessly car-dependent and our cars are needlessly large. Modern cars are way too heavy, and the amount of steel and electronics in them is far in excess of what’s needed! Swapping out the power source does nothing to resolve these fundamental problems,” said Shoshana K., an Extinction Rebellion activist who participated in the action.

“The lithium mining project at Thacker Pass is a disaster! We cannot spoil our natural land to extract a new type of resource from the ground,” said Mun Chong, an Extinction Rebellion member.

About Extinction Rebellion

Extinction Rebellion is a global, nonpartisan climate justice movement using nonviolent direct action to pressure governments to act now to address the climate and ecological emergency and listen to the people’s call for a just, livable future.

The climate crisis is here and now. It’s happening all around us, hitting some of us harder than others. Extinction Rebellion demands that all of us, especially important institutions and governments, tell the truth about the ongoing sixth mass extinction. Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with their government’s criminal inaction.

Internationally, Extinction Rebellion has been demanding that those with power act now to halt the worst of the climate catastrophe we’re now living through. Unlike other climate advocacy groups, Extinction Rebellion understands that we must lead by example, demonstrating the decision-making needed to address this crisis. Only by going beyond politics and establishing citizens assemblies can we adequately build the fair and just transition we need.

Leading by example, Extinction Rebellion is fighting for a more stable, sustainable world.

actions, pressMun XRMarch 30, 2024