When Trump announced his withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, he talked about representing "Pittsburgh, not Paris." But what he didn't realize is that the city of Pittsburgh, like the majority of Americans in every state, supports climate action and the Paris climate agreement. Pittsburgh residents want clean energy and clean transportation. In fact, the city just announced its commitment to 100 percent clean energy and is currently looking into greening its public transit with zero-emission, electric buses.
But it's not just cities that can fight back against Trump's policies and protect our planet. Pittsburgh residents, and people all over, can take a stand for climate action by urging our cities to take "Ready for 100" percent clean energy action, by installing rooftop solar, switching to cleaner transportation choices, such as biking or driving an electric car.
A fully electric vehicle (EV) uses electricity to power a battery. This means no gasoline, no dirty oil changes, and no internal combustion engine. Most new fully electric vehicles can drive 70-100 miles on one charge. New models coming out this year will go farther than 200 miles in between charges. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles run on electricity for a certain number of miles, and as their battery runs out of charge, a gasoline powered engine or generator kicks in.
Today's electric vehicles are as clean as a gasoline car that gets 73 miles to the gallon.
Electric vehicles are cleaner than ever. No matter where you live, even factoring in the emissions associated with electricity used to charge EVs, these cars are significantly cleaner than conventional vehicles. With more and more cities pledging to go all in on clean energy, EVs will only get cleaner over time as we shift to more renewable sources of power.
Passenger cars drive America's oil consumption, accounting for 45 percent of oil used in the United States. At the same time, oil consumption accounts for more than 40 percent of greenhouse gas pollution. The largest sources of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions include passenger cars and light-duty trucks, such as SUVs, pickup trucks, minivans, and sedans. These emissions are from both the vehicle tailpipes and the "upstream" emissions from extracting, refining, and transporting the oil to our vehicles. While our cars have been part of our climate problem, clean electric vehicles can be part of the solution.
On average, today's electric vehicles are as clean as a gasoline car that gets 73 miles to the gallon. To find out just how much cleaner an EV is in your state, enter your zip code here.
This piece originally appeared on Vice Impact.