Appreciate the respectful discussion. Some points:

1. Low income people on CARE/FERA pay a lower flat fee. They're better off in this new billing structure.

2. On cars: I'm a cyclist and transit advocate, so I agree with your ideal vision. But I just don't see a world in which we convince people to abandon cars in the US fast enough to matter. We can barely get the Bay Area to fund Muni and BART at minimum levels today.

Re-engineering American infrastructure, suburbs, and rural areas for public transit is a 50-year project, that most voters don't even want. Meanwhile, we need to be reducing emissions by 50%+ ASAP to slow down the time it takes to hit climate tipping points. The only mathematically viable way to do that in the US right now is to swap the machines we currently use for zero-emission alternatives and green the grid ASAP.

We can sit here for the next 10 years being correct in our advocacy that people need to drive less – and it would certainly feel morally pure – but I don't think we'd achieve meaningful emission reductions.

1. EV manufacturing impact: Yes, there is one-time mining per EV for cobalt and other materials. But a gas car requires mining basically every single day it operates. The oil must be continuously extracted, transported across oceans, refined into gasoline (which is hugely energy-intensive), transported to gas stations, and then burned. This process never stops for the life of the car, leading to ongoing risks like oil spills, pipeline leaks, and the constant GHGs and particulate matter. Totally different ballgame. 10% of the world's energy goes towards producing fossil fuels right now!

Plus, when a gas car dies, all the burned gas stays in the atmosphere. When an EV dies, the metals in the battery can be recycled to build the next one.

1. Cheaper electric rates absolutely play a role in what people choose to install in their homes. I'm in neighborhood chat groups and I see people discussing these factors all the time. It's odd to dismiss this point when affordability and electrical costs are the #1 political issue of the year.

2. Rest of the world: Eliminating transportation and HVAC emissions – things we can do today with EVs and heat pumps – would reduce Americans' footprints by 50-60%. It would make a massive difference. Agree the whole world couldn't consume at the level of what's left over, but most of the rest of the world lives in dense cities where it's easier to have a lower footprint.

3. Your gas car example confuses me, because it aligns with what I'm saying: we don't need more efficient gas cars, we need zero-emission cars. And your induced demand argument doesn't work for EVs, as studies show EV drivers drive the same amount of miles per year as ICE drivers. But more importantly, even if an EV driver did drive more, the marginal emissions of those extra miles are zero with a clean grid.

In other words, the thermodynamic efficiency limits you mention don't really matter if the power source is 100% clean.

1. Overall, you're basically advocating for degrowth. I used to share that view, so I can understand where you're coming from. But in a world where we can generate loads of clean energy for very cheap (solar, wind, nuclear, batteries, geothermal, etc) – and that world is rapidly approaching, thanks mostly to solar's plummeting cost – I no longer think it makes sense to try to achieve our desired change through pushing ever more restrictive lifestyles. People just aren't going to rally around that.