Poorer countries in Europe tax fuel more. If you raise fuel tax, people will find ways to buy less fuel. Generally this means more efficient (often smaller) cars, and perhaps prioritizing living more near to jobs etc.

The main problem is that fuel tax should be increased slowly so people can change their consumption accordingly.

The difference is, even the poorer countries in Europe have a better bus and train system than the majority of America. Now, granted, America is much larger so I hate these comparisons. Many European countries are the size of an American state, but compare any US state and the bus and train system will almost certainly pale in comparison.

I'm all for a fuel tax, but I'm also a huge proponent for a decent alternative to the single car transport system that America is so very reliant upon. People talk about biking, but being able to bike to a decent and available transit station would be a dream come true to a huge swath of the American population.

/end rant

This isn't really true. My experience in Europe is that cities over 500k population generally have decent public transit systems that you can use all the time. Below 100k population they are likely terrible, infrequent and not enough routes (there are exceptions, but it is rare). In between 100k and 500k it's a coin flip whether they are good or bad.

Regardless it is definitely not the case that people drive less in Europe because they are taking public transit way more - EU and US basically have the same modal share - maybe !0% more people taking transit that driving, but not really a huge difference.

What is very different is the length and distance of commutes in the US. The average american drives 3-4x more distance than the average european, so fuel taxes can be 3-4x higher in Europe than US and the consumer pays the same. This is really a result of the inefficient urban design many places in the US have, with huge sprawl leading to enormous commutes. This is a much harder thing to fix (and it also precludes better transit systems due the very low population density).

Does the European everyman get a 2400sqft detached house on a quarter acre?

Whether American urban design is "inefficient" depends on the value you place on mass-affordable spacious housing. I personally think this is a dumb thing to optimize for, but a lot of people are really attached to it. I think they'd look at a European transit-centric home as ideal for a group of college friends, but balk at the idea of raising a family in close quarters or with strangers walking by.

Again, I'm not talking about transit oriented. Most Europeans live in suburbs with poor transit and drive.

The difference is European suburbs tend to be much more densely populated so commutes are less in distance.

Instead of 2400sq ft houses, you're probably looking at 1500sqft with some garden space but far less than a US one. Tbh they are totally fine for raising a family.

I have a 1300sqft house in the US built in 1930 and it originally had five bedrooms plus a sleeping porch. Americans have developed crazy notions about how much house they need since they became investment vehicles.

So change fuel/carbon taxes not just slow enough for people to adapt but for infrastructure to adapt.

Not hard to add a good bus system, buy 1000 electric buses from China, done.

Buying electric buses from China is a good way to get yourself un-elected as a US politician. Especially as there are vehicles made here which also generate jobs.

Heck, in Chicago there was a big stink when the city started putting in “foreign made” decorative street lights and bus stops a few years back when there were locally-manufactured alternatives.

> The main problem is that fuel tax should be increased slowly so people can change their consumption accordingly.

Not necessarily. Even if you implement really high CO2 tax, as long as it's fiscally neutral - i.e. it gets paid back to the population, instead of the government spending/wasting it - and it's paid out quickly (e.g. weekly or monthly, instead of yearly with a long delay) it would work just as well - people would adapt as quickly as they can/want to, and everybody who changes their consumption faster than average, would benefit.

That's like reducing the oxygen level for lab rats to see how they would adapt. These people have 500 bucks in savings and no health insurance.

Get rid of the need for health insurance. That'll save them the worry and they'll end up healthier.

I wonder how you would do that. Healthcare in the US is the way it is because many powerful people profit from it. They are effectively above the law and can use the judicial branch to protect their interest.

Do what Canada does; add a carbon tax and distribute the proceeds. This is generally a progressive tax scheme so low income people end up with MORE money.

Canada uses a revenue neutral system where effectively all the money goes into a big pot and then is divvied up evenly, so it doesn't impact COL. The math says the majority of Canadians, particularly the working poor, come out ahead.

As the program grows, the payout check is switching to quarterly (up till now it was annual on your tax rebate)

The US is far richer than Europe, with an average GDP per capita of over 10000$ higher than most western European countries. Alabama is about as rich as Germany, for instance. So if Europe can do it, then the US could easily do it.

It would be more accurate to say that Alabama residents are about as rich as Germans per capita. Germany's overall GDP is roughly 16x as large as Alabama.

Overall GDP isn't a measure of richness. Luxembourg is richer than India, it doesn't matter that India's overall GDP is higher.

The optimal solution for that is better city and regional planning so waitresses and the like can find low cost housing near work and for it to be generally viable to make life work without a car.

These kind of suggestions prompt a snarky response. Imagine an emergency meeting to discuss the leaking co2 problem in a 200 story tower we live in. Everybody knows that the source of the leak is the old plumbing and rusty electrical wiring. Suddenly, someone shows up in the midst of the discussion and presents a solution: we just need to replace plumbing and wiring.

It's a little more like saying:

Everybody knows the source of the leak is old plumbing and the root cause is an old handbook effectively denying residents the right to repair. Let's update the handbook so that residents can do some repairs.

This argument is being brought up every time someone talks about any (especially environmental) fix that would cost money. By now I believe there is a certain part of the political spectrum in the US who need the poor just to make these arguments, because otherwise maybe someone would've done something about the issue. Ironically the ones who shout loudest about the poor people who can't afford these measures, are also the ones with the strongest resistance to fixing the huge economic disparities in the US.

It’s weird because I associate car ownership with wealth! I’m in my 40s in London in the UK earning an ok salary and neither me nor many of many friends have a car.

Outside of the big cities in England almost everyone has a car too. Most of the US is like that.

I don't know much about London, but in the US the arrangement is that expensive cities provide work and hoards of minimum wage workers live in exurbs 1-2 hours away from those cities. They have to wake up at 6 am, spend an hour or more in atrocious traffic on a highway with other minimum wage workers, then do the same in the reverse at the end of the day. On a bus it would take 2x longer. They don't have a choice. Now if you force them to swap their rusty gas cars for ev ones (beware, 3k usd for them is a massive expense) and force them to spend 1 hour a day recharging those ev cars, the US economy would stall as the wealthy hipsters in the cities won't do the service jobs.

Just one point of contention here:

You don't "spend" time recharging an EV unless your one-way trip is longer than the maximum range.

You get where you're going, plug in and come back to more power than you had before you left.

Maybe provide a fleet of clean, well run, electric, regular scheduled, buses and they won't have to sit in the traffic in their individual cars.

Provide bus depots with car parking in the exurbs so that there is the possibility of short driving commutes to/from the depot.

Use smaller, much more frequent, shuttle buses to pickup/drop off "on demand" between houses and those hub depots, then they don't need the car to get there.

Or we could just allow construction of more housing in cities?

London has the Tube and buses and bike lanes - try living in the US without a car... ( ex-pat Brit now in the US)

In the US people may be homeless, but they'll still have a car. It's THAT essential to living...

where I live, having reliable transportation (i.e. owning a car) is pretty much a job requirement wherever you work.

a lot of people don't exactly understand just how _sprawling_ the US is.

yet in rular Poland, only rich people (or disabled, elderly, wihout driver license, who have no other choice) can live comfortably without car

These kind of changes have to be gradually phased in so that people and economy can adjust. Be it raised wages, living closer to work, using other means of transportation or just more economic cars. The actual fuel costs paid per kilometer driven are probably less for the average european car than for a truck in the US, as the average european car uses so much less fuel.

A lot of these people live paycheck to paycheck because they throw a large chunk of it at an oversized car loan.

Not sure that matters when their house is burning down in the much more common forest fires or flooding due to more extreme storms.