The race to decarbonize passenger cars and light-duty trucks in the U.S. is accelerating. Battery electric vehicles accounted for almost 6% of all new vehicle sales in 2022, up from close to 3% in 2021, and demand is outstripping supply, even as manufacturers roll out new models and designs. The Biden administration is spending billions of dollars to build out EV charging networks and providing incentives for purchasing new and used EVs.

This shift offers big economic and environmental benefits, but they’re not spread equitably. People who bear the most burdens in our current transportation systems often receive the fewest benefits, and are least able to change their situations.

I study the future of clean transportation and energy, and my research analyzes equity considerations in the design of these systems. As my colleagues and I see it, an equitable transition will require thinking broadly about all transportation users and their needs – especially those who are currently being left behind.

Here are four issues that we believe should be front and center:

Banning gas-powered cars can have unintended consequences

California has banned sales of new gas-powered passenger cars and light-duty trucks starting in 2035, and other states are following suit. Without the right support, these bans could hurt communities that are underserved by current transportation systems.

At the end of 2022, the average price of a new battery EV was around $61,500, compared with an average of $49,500 for all new cars. Less-expensive models are starting to reach the market, but EVs remain out of financial reach for many people.

Federal tax credits of up to $7,500 for new EVs or $4,000 for used ones come with manufacturer restrictions, income thresholds and vehicle price caps. For now, the policy does not offer discounts at the time of purchase, so upfront costs remain high and often prohibitive for many buyers.

These bans may affect markets for used gas-powered cars, and it’s unclear whether states will provide support for people who can’t transition immediately to EVs. Used car prices are already at unprecedented highs due to inflation and global supply chain issues affecting the new car market. Bans on new gas-powered cars could further boost prices in the used market, as long as those models are cheaper than EVs.

Supporting industries, such as repair shops, gas stations and auto dealerships, could also be affected. These businesses, which provide services and jobs in their communities, could be displaced in the shift to EVs, which require less maintenance than gas-powered cars and have different supply chains and support systems.

The Biden administration has pledged that shifting to EVs will create high-quality jobs. However, many parts of the auto industry and workforce development systems need to evolve to ensure that workers benefit from this process.

Gas-powered cars will keep polluting for years

Bans on sales of new gas-powered vehicles won’t affect those that are already on the road. One-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector. Cars and light-duty trucks produce almost two-thirds of that share, which makes them a major driver of climate change.

They also emit air pollutants, notably fine particulates, that can cause premature deaths and illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, asthma and other respiratory ailments. Studies show that fine particle pollution disproportionately burdens communities of color.

Gas-powered cars can remain on the road for up to 30 years. Given their harmful health effects, I believe that waiting for the U.S. auto fleet to naturally turn over to zero-emission vehicles is not acceptable.

There aren’t many mechanisms today to encourage drivers to shift away from old, dirty cars. The federal CARS program, also known as “Cash for Clunkers,” ran for a few months in 2009 and offered rebates of up to $4,500 to drivers who turned in older vehicles for more fuel-efficient new or used cars. However, this program delivered modest emission reductions relative to its cost

What’s more, older vehicles often are shipped abroad for resale. According to a United Nations report, the U.S. is one of the top three global exporters of used cars. In addition to increasing scrapping and recycling of older, high-emitting cars, I see a need for coordinated international regulations to ensure safe and sustainable trade of used vehicles, as the U.N. report recommended.

EV incentives don’t go to underserved drivers

Benefits to promote EV adoption often aren’t accessible to those who need them most. A 2020 study funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation found that low-income households in Atlanta were less likely to benefit from state and federal EV incentives than higher-income households, because the incentives were awarded as credits against income taxes owed. This is also how current federal tax credits are structured.

In a paper currently under review, colleagues and I show that to date in California, EV adoption and rebate rates are lower in zip codes whose residents are majority low-income and populations of color, as well as in formerly redlined neighborhoods.

In another study, we examined an equity mobility program in California that was designed to help low-income households purchase zero-emission vehicles. We found that the program didn’t fully work as intended, because the application process was complex, imposed challenging timelines and offered applicants limited support.

California has enacted new legislation that will expand this program statewide, and we look forward to seeing updates and improvements.

Rural areas face unique transportation challenges

Almost one-fifth of Americans live in rural areas, where they typically drive more than city dwellers, have sparse access to public transit and often rely on private vehicles. Members of our research group have interviewed rural residents who don’t own cars and rely on one bus a day to get to the nearest doctor’s office or grocery store.

So far, policies intended to promote the EV transition have not focused on rural areas, although the Department of Transportation has launched an initiative focusing on these communities’ needs. Rural residents are concerned about availability of charging infrastructure, economic development and EVs that fit rural residents’ needs, and in my view, they deserve targeted support.

In a car-centric society, who does the EV transition serve?

The U.S. is a car-centric society where most people need access to an automobile to live their lives effectively. Many years of policies and investments have produced a system that focuses on helping drivers reach their destinations as quickly as possible, rather than other objectives like clean air or reliable public transit.

By doing so, the system values the time of drivers more than that of people who rely on other modes of transit. Americans with access to cars have more freedom and more choice about where and how to pursue an education, work and spend time with loved ones.

Surveys show that Americans who are lower-income, Black, Hispanic or immigrants are especially likely to use public transit regularly. Today, mass transit systems are in decline across the U.S., thanks to pandemic ridership decreases that have worsened the effects of long-term underfunding.

In my view, the EV transition should be part of a broader shift to clean mobility that invests in public transit, walking and biking, as well as systems like EV charging that support private car use. New clean mobility systems should be designed so that all Americans have safe and reliable options for getting to their destinations.

Sita M. Syal, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Do you think that creativity is an innate gift? Think again.

Many people believe that creative thinking is difficult – that the ability to come up with ideas in novel and interesting ways graces only some talented individuals and not most others.

The media often portrays creatives as those with quirky personalities and unique talent. Researchers have also identified numerous personality traits that are associated with creativity, such as openness to new experiences, ideas and perspectives.

Together, they seem to paint a dire picture for those who consider themselves conventional thinkers, as well as those who do not work in creative occupations – including roles that are often considered traditional and noncreative, such as accountants and data analysts.

These beliefs miss a key part of how creativity works in your brain: Creative thinking is actually something you engage in every day, whether you realize it or not.

Moreover, creativity is a skill that can be strengthened. This matters even for people who don’t consider themselves creative or who aren’t in creative fields.

In research that I recently published with organization and management scholars Chris Bauman and Maia Young, we found that simply reinterpreting a frustrating situation can enhance the creativity of conventional thinkers.

Using creative thinking to cope with emotions

Creativity is often defined as the generation of ideas or insights that are novel and useful. That is, creative thoughts are original and unexpected, but also feasible and useful.

Everyday examples of creativity are plentiful: combining leftover food to make a tasty new dish, coming up with a new way to accomplish chores, mixing old outfits to create a new look.

Another way you do this is when you practice what’s called “emotional reappraisal” – viewing a situation through another lens to change your feelings. There is an element of creativity to this: You’re breaking away from your existing perspectives and assumptions and coming up with a new way of thinking.

Say you’re frustrated about a parking ticket. To alleviate the bad feelings, you can think of the fine as a learning moment.

If you’re anxious about a presentation for work, you can cope with the anxiety by framing it as an opportunity to share ideas, rather than as a high-stakes performance that could result in demotion if handled poorly.

And if you’re angry that someone seemed unnecessarily combative in a conversation, you might reevaluate the situation, coming to view the behavior as unintentional rather than malicious.

Training your creative muscles

To test the link between creative thinking and emotional reappraisal, we surveyed 279 people. Those who ranked higher on creativity tended to reappraise emotional events more often in their daily life.

Inspired by the link between emotional reappraisal and creative thinking, we wanted to see whether we could use this insight to develop ways to help people be more creative. In other words, could emotional reappraisal be practiced by people in order to train their creative muscles?

We ran two experiments in which two new samples of participants – 512 in total – encountered scenarios designed to provoke an emotional response. We tasked them with using one of three approaches to manage their emotions. We told some participants to suppress their emotional response, others to think about something else to distract themselves and the last group to reappraise the situation by looking at it through a different lens. Some participants were also given no instructions on how to manage their feelings.

In a seemingly unrelated task that followed, we asked the participants to come up with creative ideas to solve a problem at work.

In the experiments, conventional thinkers who tried reappraisal came up with ideas that were more creative than other conventional thinkers who used suppression, distraction or received no instructions at all.

Cultivating flexible thinking

Negative emotions are inevitable in work and life. Yet people often hide their negative feelings from others, or use distraction to avoid thinking about their frustrations.

Our findings have implications for how managers can think about how to best leverage the skills of their workers. Managers commonly slot job candidates into creative and noncreative jobs based on cues that signal creative potential. Not only are these cues shaky predictors of performance, but this hiring practice may also limit managers’ access to employees whose knowledge and experience can play major roles in generating creative outcomes.

The result is that the creative potential of a significant part of the workforce may be underutilized. Our findings suggest that supervisors can develop training and interventions to cultivate creativity in their employees – even for those who might not seem predisposed to creativity.

Our research also indicates that people can practice flexible thinking every day when they experience negative emotions. Although people may not always have control over the external circumstances, they do have the liberty to choose how to cope with emotional situations – and they can do so in ways that facilitate their productivity and well-being.

Lily Zhu, Assistant Professor of Management, Information Systems and Entrepreneurship, Washington State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Student learning took a big hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Just how much is only becoming clear nearly three years after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic and nearly all U.S. public schools pivoted to online instruction for at least several months in March 2020.

However, the data guiding the nation’s efforts to help kids catch up does not generally include the students who experienced the most dramatic learning disruptions.

Nationwide testing results released in the fall of 2022 revealed that the reading and math performance on standardized tests of students who were in fourth and eighth grades in the U.S. in the 2021-2022 school year declined by historic amounts.

This dramatic evidence of learning loss has mobilized federal, state and local education leaders. The federal government has allocated US$122 billion to support state and local efforts to help students “catch up in the classroom.”

Public school districts are using these resources to fund tutoring and extended learning time. And researchers are assessing the effects of these investments on standardized test scores.

However, these efforts do little to identify or target support to the children whose learning environments were most disrupted by the pandemic. This is especially so for the youngest students, who aren’t yet old enough for most standardized testing.

Enrollment decline and the ‘streetlight effect’

During the pandemic, public school enrollment in grades K through 12 fell by 1.2 million students. These declines were concentrated among kindergarten students and in schools that offered only remote instruction.

Similarly dramatic enrollment losses among even younger learners erased a decade of progress in boosting preschool education enrollment.

These declines indicate that the pandemic caused students to miss instructional time or undertake disruptive school switches, often in their developmentally critical early years.

However, school officials list early-childhood programs among the least popular use of available federal funds and provide no indication of targeted academic-recovery efforts for younger or truant students.

This is an example of what scholars call the “streetlight effect,” in which people focus their attention on easily visible evidence – such as the test scores available for older, currently enrolled students – rather than other relevant data that are more obscured and harder to identify.

And long lags in national data reporting mean little is yet known about the learning environments of the disproportionately young children whose families avoided public schools during the pandemic. Currently, official federal statistics do not even provide basic data on private school or home-school enrollment beyond 2019.

Where the kids went

My research, done collaboratively with The Associated Press and data journalists at Stanford University’s Big Local News, addresses this issue.

For our analysis, we gathered state-level data on public, private and home-school enrollment for the school years from 2019-20 through 2021-22. We also used U.S. Census Bureau estimates to identify the school-age population in each state over this time period. These combined data provide insights into where the students who avoided public schools went and what it means for the nation’s academic-recovery efforts.

Complete data aren’t available in every state, but we have good data on more than half of the school-age population in the U.S. at the onset of the pandemic. These states also experienced public school enrollment declines that are representative of the national trend.

Some students, particularly the youngest, clearly turned to private schools during the pandemic. In the 34 jurisdictions with available data, private school enrollment grew by over 140,000 students between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years. However, this increase only explains a modest amount – roughly 14% – of the corresponding decline in public school enrollment.

A more surprising finding is the robust growth of home-schooling during this period. An early Census Bureau survey reported that home-schooling increased soon after the pandemic began. Our data show this initial increase endured into the 2021-22 school year when most public schools returned to in-person instruction.

In the 22 jurisdictions with data, home-school enrollment increased by over 184,000 students between the 2019-20 and 2021-22 school years – a 30% increase. For every additional student enrolled in private school over this period, nearly two entered home-schooling. This sustained growth in home-schooling explains 26% of the corresponding losses in public school enrollment.

Roughly a quarter of the public school enrollment loss simply reflects the pandemic decline in the number of school-age children in the U.S. However, people moving to new homes during the pandemic means this demographic impact varied considerably by state. In states like California and New York, which saw their overall populations fall dramatically, the percentage declines in public school enrollment were at least six times those in states like Texas and Florida, where populations grew.

New questions for academic recovery

These findings raise several new questions about what help American students will need to get their education back on track. For instance, researchers know little about the learning opportunities available to children who switched to home-schooling, or the effects of this choice on families.

Our data is also unable to locate more than one-third of the students who left public schools. That could mean that some children are not going to school at all – or that even more families started home-schooling but did so without notifying their state.

A third possibility is that the pandemic led more families to have their kids skip kindergarten. Our data indirectly supports this conjecture. The unexplained declines in public school enrollment are concentrated in states that do not require kindergarten attendance, like California and Colorado.

What we do know is the pandemic’s learning disruptions occurred disproportionately among the nation’s youngest learners.

Our work to understand and respond to this situation is just beginning. One possible response is to refocus some federal funding on the broad use of early screening tools to reliably identify – and address – learning setbacks years before students are old enough to take the current battery of standardized tests, which often begins in the third grade. Policymakers can also do more to locate students who are missing and to understand the educational needs of those outside the light of conventional data systems.

Thomas Dee, Barnett Family Professor, Stanford University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.