Inherent to any discussion of “is X good/bad for the environment?”, there’s always the matter of accounting: to what or whom – and when – do environmental benefits/impacts accrue? And there’s no general answer to that, which is why multiple reasonable people in a room can independently conclude that the solutions to climate change can be any of: personal responsibility and personal consumption taxes, the downfall of capitalism, public policy to distort market forces, laissez faire and light-touch regulation, domestic manufacturing, offshore mining, or even all of the above simultaneously.
Unless there is agreement on how the climate impacts are counted and totaled up, you’ll get 11 answers from 10 people. I think the point of this video is: 1) in proportion to either the typical Western consumer or the average human anywhere on earth, the embodied carbon footprint from manufacturing of an ebike is low, and 2) the propensity to displace other modes of transport is where ebikes can flex their environmental credentials.
Some may not agree that displacement is a net positive, arguing that if an ebike works so well for someone that they sell their car, then that car will be driven by someone else and now there’s an extra ebike in this world. I don’t agree with such simplistic logic or its conclusion.
But for people that do see displacement as a valid environment net-benefit, then I hope they’ll see that ebikes are very effective at that. Since ebikes still use lithium batteries, that’ll continue to be a point of contention, but given the typically fossil-fuel alternative, we could do much, much worse for the environment.
Certainly worse than a regular pedal bike.
The only cycling I do is my commute, it’s ten miles each way on hilly roads. I’m not 21 anymore and I absolutely wouldn’t be cycling it without an ebike. This saves 100 miles of driving every week.
Yh, it’s worse than a regular bike but you shouldn’t let good be the enemy of perfect.
I’m not saying e-bikes are bad. Just clarifying that they’re not a zero impact bike v. a pedal bicycle.
Funny that you say that. Check min 4:40 - https://youtu.be/HW5b8_KBtT8?si=kWTIiAzLzRaKve6b&t=280
That’s like saying exercise is bad for the environment, shit take.
They are more carbon intensive to produce, since they are a regular bike, with additional parts.
Actually mate, I know it sounds ridiculous, but it has been demonstrated that, statistically, because of the extra amount of calories burned and the pollution due to food production and transportation in modern times, ebikes are greener despite the higher impact of their production.
Of course the specific case can be different, maybe someone already grows their own organic food and buys an ebike without doing any distance that they couldnt cover easily with their acoustic bike, and then proceeds after only a few months to throw their ebike off a bridge (stupid example, but much more important when studying the impact of electric cars vs ICE cars, if an EV gets into a really bad accident or fire in the first ~20-30k kms of its life, then it would have been slightly better for everyone that it wasnt built, compared to an ICE car)
As far as exercise goes, it has also been shown that ebikes results on average in more exercise by more people, because people cover much bigger distances, and/ore use it more often, and because it allows you to smooth out the ride (making some roads, especially climbs, cyclable to people who wouldn’t have been able to do them with a normal bike), and to decide for yourself when you want to put more effort.
The person would still need to exercise by another method and still need to consume those calories…
All it’s doing is pushing it to some other metric to make theirs look better.
Sorry, it’s a shit take since people still need all of that exercise and food regardless the food still needs to be shipped, bike or ebike and supplemental exercise. You know what’s even better for the environment using this asinine logic, never leaving the house and having everything delivered, it’s someone else’s problem, just like using an ebike and claiming it’s better.
That doesn’t add up the way you think it does. An e-bike is still exercise. In fact, it’s pretty good exercise because for general health, time spent doing physical work means more than the actual exertion level of that exercise. For body building, you do need high intensity, but not for general health.
What it adds up to is that e-bike riders tend to get more exercise because the motor lets them go longer distances. What you end up with is transportation and exercise being done together, and the extra calories don’t need to be spent on separate exercise time.
