I live in the countryside in Norway - a famously long and sparsely populated country - and I either work close enough to home to go by bike or I work far enough away that I can manage to pick up my laptop and get some work done while in public transit. And yes: I get to the train station by bike, bus or by feet, if necessary it is just 30 minutes brisk walk.
Edit: not every Norwegian can do this, but far more than today. I guess this is true for a number of other countries as well.
I'm curious what kind of town you live in. I grew up in a rural area, in which google claims its a 50 minute bike ride to the nearest grocery store, along curvy & hilly country roads with absolutely no sidewalks, let alone bike lanes, and where monstrous pickup trucks are liable to sideswipe you out of spite as much as accident.
My sister lives in a suburb in Florida: better, but the weather is unbearable for half the year. She also has three children, making carrying sufficient groceries in a bike pretty much impossible.
If people can bike, they should. But a lot of people live in these sorts of conditions that are not conducive to biking, enough that "just bike to the grocery store" is not a realistic or achievable goal.
All I hear is excuses. Excuses why someone "needs" to drive a 2 ton truck, excuses why someone "needs" to fly across the Atlantic, excuses why someone "needs" a house with more bathrooms than people, excuses why it's too cold/hot to cycle.
I'm not talking about buying a 2 ton truck or flying across the Atlantic, or owning a big house. I'm talking about people needing to get groceries.
I would prefer that infrastructure in the U.S. were more dense, that less people were not required to drive everywhere. But the reality is that, as life in many parts of the U.S. is currently set up, people cannot rely on bicycling as a safe, efficient, and effective means of transportation in their daily lives. Biking, if you live in a place that supports it, is good, but telling people to "just bike" remains a useless and naive plan for addressing climate change. Your energy will be better spent elsewhere.
If you had to make that ride to eat, you would. If you did it regularly you wouldn't think anything of it. I have a hard time believing motorists are out there hitting cyclists out of spite.
People enjoy cycling on country roads with hills and no bike lanes. Some also enjoy cycling in all weather conditions. If you haven't tried it, it is a bit much to call it impossible.
That said, I think people should be able to consume energy however they choose, even drivers of "monstrous pickup trucks". If it makes them happy or they otherwise find utility in it, it is their money to spend.
If a motorists injures someone with their vehicle, they should pay damages.
Even if I accepted the premise of climate apocalypse, which I don't, the idea of allowing technocrats control over what the public can and cannot consume seems like a more dangerous precedent. Especially when we are talking about something as essential to modern life as energy consumption.
"...If you can’t justify your existence; if you’re not pulling your weight in the social boat; if you are not producing as much as you consume or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us, and it can’t be of very much use to yourself." George Bernard Shaw, on eugenics.
Nothing can be consumed without some form of "externality" and the negativity of someone's consumption is purely subjective. Consider the first principles of the proposal and where they lead.
You'll note that the above poster invoked "monstrous pickup trucks", a clear indicator of tribal, if not political affiliation. Ultimately it amounts to nothing more than a partisan condemnation of the 'other' and their culture. The scientism rationalizing it is nothing more than a thinly veiled window dressing over intolerance.
Of course, entertaining this flavor of intolerance and rationalizations for central planning could be considered a negative outcome. The threat of tyranny, the fallibility of man and his predilection towards corruption should be well understood by now. Just as two parallel lines will never meet, these are axiomatic truths of human nature. Whereas climate doomsaying is the latest in a long history of failed predictions of apocalypse. Nobody should be surprised that the fear is used to centralize control over energy resources, but here we are...
Close inspection indeed. You've misread the comment entirely.
I can assure you that I'm opposed to death panels and eugenics. Consumption is essential to living one's life. Under a laissez-faire system, one cannot consume more than he produces in terms of subjective market valuations.
Shaw's proposal is not libertarian, but illustrative of where the logic of subjectively determined "negative externalities" leads. Sorry that wasn't clearer for you.
As an American expat, I know what you mean, but the problem is this simply isn’t true. Americans think this way because they have never seen an alternative. What it does mean is that the cost of consumption goes way up, which is exactly what’s needed.
The problem is, you simply cannot tell people to drop their cars when there is no public transport. No matter the country.
If you want to change the behavior of people, you have to build out public transport and bike lanes first or you'll (and it ashames me to say it as a leftie, rightfully) get laughed out of the door.
Yes. Also, in my country, there are alternatives, but it is so much faster and time efficient to use car. I would gladly used any alternative that would not cost me additional time than car.
The problem is, outside of urban areas there simply is no alternative to owning a car because public transport has never been built or torn down.