<Grim>, indeed. (Hard-hitting report in The Atlantic at the previous link.)
Internal combustion engines are not the problem though. Fossil fuel is.
JCB has already invented an internal combustion engine which is zero emissions, which is far cheaper than EVs, and which has none of the environmental and social damage of battery mining.
Essentially, you convert diesel engines from compression ignition to spark ignition. Here, in this video, legendary petrolhead Harry Metcalfe (former founder of EVO magazine, still the best car enthusiast magazine) interviews Lord Bamford of JCB (surely one of the more unlikely eco warriors, but he may be about to do far more to save the planet than most):
Meanwhile, in thrall to unnecessary managerialists, city centre baristas and city centre tower block developers, corrupt and irrational governments are exhorting us to use our fossil fueled cars, trains and buses to make thousands of entirely unnecessary journeys to “offices” (“offices”, like cash and call boxes, are pointless and expensive relics from a pre-Internet age, which elderly white men, bribed young fogies and lonely young people who can’t get a shag are all addicted to).
Meanwhile, some bloke in Australia (unfortunately, he has been elected by lots of other people to ruin, sorry run, the country) announces he’s <just going to ignore climate change>.
What a flounce, cobber!
Which segues nicely into this report on whether or not humans are simply <too stupid to save themselves>; and this report on whether or not we’re <too thick to vote>.
As anecdotal evidence for the stupidity position, I personally know a young medical doctor who is anti-vaccines(!) and someone else (who otherwise functions and displays no other obvious signs, such as incessant drooling, of being a cretin*) who is worried that vaccines will make her “magnetic”. I kid you not …
*Be careful – they are among us, and they look normal …
Disjecta 