Asphalt used on road surfaces are byproducts from fossil fuel. With the ultimate goal of eliminating the use of fossil fuel to combat climate change, are there any good alternatives for road surfaces? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a viable replacement of asphalt in the works, or even a plan to replace it in any environmental discussions before. At least, not enough for me to notice.
Extented question would be: what are some products derived from fossil fuel that are used in everyday life, but still lack viable alternatives you don’t see enough discussions about?
I think you underestimate how small differences have large results when we’re talking about nationwide or population-wide issues. If there are a million cars on the road and this change makes suspensions wear 5% faster, then every X years (however long it would usually take for them to wear) there are an extra 50,000 cars needing replacements. That’s not an insignificant amount. Scale that up to larger countries that have tens or hundreds of millions of cars and the result gets even larger.
Small differences make large impacts. 1.5°C average global warming is having disastrous effects on the environment and our capacity to thrive. COVID-19 has a Case Fatality Rate of around 1% (depending on country) and it has caused nearly 7 million deaths - more than the amount of Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust and similar to the Holodomor.
Holocaust total was 12 million, of which 6 million were Jews.
Cheers for the correction - I’ve edited my comment.