Debunking A MAGA Video Against EVs

I got a mass email two days ago with a video attached of the Republican McClintock spouting lies and misdirection about EVs, oil, climate change, and his place in history. The sender apparently didn’t realize how they were being manipulated into sending misinformation to their contacts.

“Harry sent this to his cousin ( who has an EV ) it didn’t go over to good .L.O.L Guess they can’t stand the truth. I think this guy make a lot of sense ——P”

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=535268254736855

No, the video is really rather ignorant. Here’s a few reasons why:

-He cites needing more cobalt, 6 times more, but Telsa has a battery that uses zero cobalt, so why would we need 6 times more??

– He doesn’t want to admit that electric motors are more efficient than engines, and the electricity can come from wind, in which Texas is leading the nation.

– America has never produced more oil, there’s no war on fossil fuel production, and Biden is expanding it into protected Arctic areas too.

-pretends that no damage to the environment comes from drilling oil, only mining for battery supplies (which he already mischaracterized and got wrong)

– He wants EVs to remain “scarce, and therefore more expensive” (he said it, but didn’t realize it applies to EVs too). Norway, an oil country, has mostly EVs sold there now, ahead of schedule.

-He pooh-poohs another 1 degree rise in climate over the next century. We’re already past 1.1 degrees C of change, so that puts us over 2 degrees, a figure widely recognized by scientists as meaning the end of most coastal cities and a world harsh to human life. Pretending that temporary financial considerations are “not going to end well for humanity” is misdirection. Proclaiming people concerned with the climate crisis as “childish” and harshly judged by history, is laughable. They’re precisely the people fighting for a history to be had.

-We’ve had technology to heat homes with the sun, passively through smart design, since 1977. Those Passive Houses can be heated with no more than a hairdryer. Neither party has done much to reduce utility bills by requiring efficient homes be built.

Thanks for the opportunity to debunk this bad video being circulated by MAGA Republicans.