On 11 Dec 2016 at 22:41, Bill Dube via EV wrote: > I guess this is how "fake news" originates.
You could say that, but the term "fake news" is just a new name for an ancient problem: propaganda. Wealthy and influential people and institutions don't take well to change when it might affect their profits. Any time you pursue something contrary to their interests, you'll eventually get slammed with propaganda. Don't forget that a couple of fairly well-known and extraordinarily well- heeled billionaires, whose money is partly in oil, have recently begun dumping dollars into a campaign explicitly designed to keep people burning oil in their ICEVs and NOT buying EVs. Plenty of "researchers" are happy to take some of their money to de-educated the public about EVs. In the EV world this is nothing new, nor is the wide publicity it's given. In 1995, Science magazine published a Carnegie Mellon University report claiming that (among other things) lead release into the environment was 60 times as high from a GM Impact prototype (later the EV1) as from a 1970s ICEV burning leaded gasoline! They came to this bizarre conclusion by assuming the most pessimistic values for every possible variable -- battery cycle life, range per cycle, energy use per mile by the EV, total amount of lead in the battery, amount of recycled lead used, and many more. This study was published despite the fact that had never been peer-reviewed. It was also widely quoted in the mainstream media, including the New York Times. The Times should have known better. So should have Science. And most definiely CMU, which was, and is, a respected university. But when 13 million bucks (almost $21 million in today's money) lands in your lap to pay for such a study, as it did for CMU, that can be mighty tempting. I'll bet you can guess where that grant money came from. Lead is no longer much of a factor in the attack on EVs, but The anti-EV forces will always find something to beat us up on. They're masters at finding ways to bend statistics to suit their pre-ordained conclusion. The folks most susceptible to their propaganda are those who are least educated. Well, guess what -- the education quality in the US is in decline. Propaganda also spreads with lightning speed today, thanks to uncritical sharing on social media. Still, let's be blunt here: ignorant people by and large never have been and probably never will be interested in EVs. It's the well educated who are already open to them. Luckily, educated people are the ones most likely to listen when you rebut propaganda with facts. Unfortunately the EV movement still has limited resources to counter this garbage -- and as usual, the bad guys have a LOT of money behind them. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
