I’d meant A to be right in both cases. And of course—against my own remonstration—I did none of the math myself. I was unfamiliar with the Templeton data. I looked it up, and it’s interesting. I’d note that while Templeton agrees that transit (by the system, not by the fully utilized vehicle) is less efficient than fuel-efficient personal transportation, he still thinks people should make use of existing transit systems.
I ride a bike.
Here’s something that comes up in many, many discussions of climate change and anything else where a lot of arguments come from models or simulations: sometimes you have to do the math to make a valid (counter-)argument.
Example:
A: …And so you, see, as CO2 increases, the mean global temperature will also increase.
B: That’s bullshit, and here’s why: as CO2 increases, there will be more photosynthesis—and the increased plant growth will consume all that extra CO2.
Another example (the one that motivated this comment):
A: And so, as long as the bus is carrying six or more passengers, it’ll be more efficient than the passenger-equivalent number of cars.
B: That’s bullshit! Buses are ten times heavier than cars, so it’s got to be ten or more bus passengers.
People often think that in discussions of quantitative phenomena, it’s enough to make arguments based purely on directional drivers/phenomena, when really the magnitudes of those drivers are hugely important. Of course there are negative feedbacks, countervailing forces, etc., but (a) usually they’re already dealt with in the original model and so B isn’t telling anyone anything new, and (b) magnitude matters.