"It's impractical for me to live in the middle of nowhere" doesn't actually refute any of their statements though.
If I were worried about spotted owls going extinct, saying "but I _like_ burning spotted owls for heat in the winter" doesn't really mean your actions are not going to have the negative consequence of spotted owls going extinct.
Compared to "hundreds of millions of people in India will die of thirst or starvation" "I like driving everywhere and living in the middle of nowhere" isn't inducing much sympathy.
Of course, you _can_ live in the middle of nowhere and have a pretty low carbon footprint. Ride a bike, eat vegetables, grow your own heating fuel, etc. Plenty of people do just that - here's one I've been following lately https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6vcadTSSQKVsdOudnbqwtg . But "I like having a cheap giant house in the middle of nowhere and driving a long ways to and from work" isn't exactly an argument.
Sad thing is that we are often pushed to live in the middle of nowhere by NIMBYs. Moderate density well-insulated homes near jobs and services that you can get to by bike, walking or transport isn't exactly a miserable life. Copenhageners seem happy enough.
Yes. I lived there for well over a decade and am still regularly visiting.
I elaborated on the meaning of the word "feasible" in the sentence "If public transportation is a feasible alternative", but removed that wall of text for better readability. Maybe should have kept it to clarify...?
> More taxes, less freedom, more punishments.
That's what we're already doing for destructive behavior if someone doesn't understand/care that what they're doing is bad. Look back at the last 30 years and tell me we actually learned that it's a bad idea to destroy our planet?
As indeed is the idea of your grand children living in a post-civilisation world
These are very different environments and public transport should be expected to be very different between them.
In cities, we should expect a high capacity system, like subways, 10-minutes buses and trams.
Gradually, as we move outside the cities densest areas, we should have a lighter but faster system, such as light transit rails, longer but still frequent bus routes.
Eventually, as we move outside suburban areas into rural areas, we should get something that barely exist right now: on-demand transit, like collective taxis, or flexible minibuses.
Doesn't matter. The planet doesn't care how difficult your commute is, and global climate policy shouldn't either. We're far past the point where we can ease in change. We need drastic worldwide change and we need it yesterday. Of course it's going to be very painful for a lot of people, but the level of climate change we're going to see on our current path is going to be an order of magnitude more so.
However, remind me while you are punishing people for driving cars, how is the public transit outside major urban areas? Have you been outside urban areas?