Portraits of Wildflowers

I’ve never cottoned to plant names with “false” in them. Don’t tell me what something isn’t; tell me about what it is in its own right. One native plant that this applies to is the so-called false gaura, Stenosiphon linifolius, shown here. Yes, it’s in the same botanical family as gaura, but I doubt anyone who looks at this tall, wiry plant for a while would mistake it for any sort of gaura.

As things have turned out, botanists now think the genus Gaura itself is false. They’ve transferred all the Gaura species to the genus Oenothera, the same one that includes the pink evening primrose, the square-bud primrose, river primrose, and various other members of the evening primrose family. False gaura, now doubly false, also got swept up in the reclassification: Stenosiphon linifolius has become Oenothera glaucifolia.

Today’s pictures are from July 8th along Oasis Bluff Dr., the one place in the Austin area I can count on to find the species. I couldn’t, however, anticipate the paper wasp in the genus Polistes.

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Here’s the executive summary of a July 12th report by Mark P. Mills titled “Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream”:

“A dozen U.S. states, from California to New York, have joined dozens of countries, from Ireland to Spain, with plans to ban the sale of new cars with an internal combustion engine (ICE), many prohibitions taking effect within a decade. Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in a feat of regulatory legerdemain, has proposed tailpipe emissions rules that would effectively force automakers to shift to producing mainly electric vehicles (EVs) by 2032.

“This is all to ensure that so-called zero-emission EVs play a central role in radically cutting carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. To ensure compliance with ICE prohibitions and soften the economic impacts, policymakers are deploying lavish subsidies for manufacturers and consumers. Enthusiasts claim that EVs already have achieved economic and operational parity, if not superiority, with automobiles and trucks fueled by petroleum, so the bans and subsidies merely accelerate what they believe is an inevitable transition.

“It is certainly true that EVs are practical and appealing for many drivers. Even without subsidies or mandates, millions more will be purchased by consumers, if mainly by wealthy ones. But the facts reveal a fatal flaw in the core motives for the prohibitions and mandates. As this report illustrates:

• No one knows how much, if at all, CO₂ emissions will decline as EV use rises. Every claim for EVs reducing emissions is a rough estimate or an outright guess based on averages, approximations, or aspirations. The variables and uncertainties in emissions from energy-intensive mining and processing of minerals used to make EV batteries are a big wild card in the emissions calculus. Those emissions substantially offset reductions from avoiding gasoline and, as the demand for battery minerals explodes, the net reductions will shrink, may vanish, and could even lead to a net increase in emissions. Similar emissions uncertainties are associated with producing the power for EV charging stations.
• No one knows when or whether EVs will reach economic parity with the cars that most people drive. An EV’s higher price is dominated by the costs of the critical materials that are needed to build it and is thus dependent on guesses about the future of mining and minerals industries, which are mainly in foreign countries. The facts also show that, for the majority of drivers, there’s no visibility for when, if ever, EVs will reach parity in cost and fueling convenience, regardless of subsidies.

“Ultimately, if implemented, bans on conventionally powered vehicles will lead to draconian impediments to affordable and convenient driving and a massive misallocation of capital in the world’s $4 trillion automotive industry.”

You’re welcome to read the full report. Also from July 12, you can read a Wall Street Journal editorial by James Freeman highlighting some of the report’s findings; it’s called “They’re Coming for Your Cars,” and the sub-head is “Even if politicians can push us all into e-vehicles, they will have to be small and scarce to achieve emissions goals.”

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman