April 2023
While I would never accuse Doug Ford of being an environmental zealot like Steven Gilbeault, the insistence that by pulling “…critical minerals out of the ground to put in the EV vehicles and the batteries to make sure we take cars off the road,” doesn’t really make a lot of environmental sense when you consider the carbon intensity of extracting those critical minerals out of the ground. Of course, let’s not forget that the batteries are pretty much toxic waste at the end of their useful life and recycling them can be hazardous, so there’s that too.
Although I have no intention of buying an EV, I do believe they should be available for those who wish to buy them (with their own money and no government subsidies). Let’s just not pretend that just because there are no emissions coming out of a tailpipe on EVs, that they have no environmental consequences.
sources: Millions of electric cars are coming. What happens to all the dead batteries? | Science | AAAS, Here’s the story behind why Ford called Guilbeault a piece of work | Toronto Sun.
