My generation Z neighbors (I have two) are very happy to live without a car. They live within three miles of their jobs and use electric scooters for commuting. They have their food and consumer goods shipped to their house. They say that they don’t need to drive anywhere, and the occasion that they want to go somewhere Uber is available. Meanwhile they are saving hundreds to thousands of dollars a month by not having two cars.
I personally (a millennial) have put less than five thousand miles on my car in the last 5 years. People say cars are a requirement for American life, but I find that’s becoming less true for more and more Americans.
Maybe more media-visible Americans are living in such areas now, but supply is extremely tight. A lot of these neighborhoods tend to be older, being poor in previous decades, and now those poor people are getting pushed out to the suburbs where cars are a great required expense.
If you go out a few times a week, not having a car in most American cities is quite difficult/burdensome/expensive. Uber alone would be $100 round trip if I wanted to go into the city from where I live. Public transit? Isn’t available past 11pm.
For many people, yes.
> Bigger house means more maintenance, and bigger lot means more mowing. I for one, hate mowing.
No one is forcing you to buy a big home with a maintenance burden. Out of respect, don't force other people into buying smaller ones.
You can easily give everyone a McMansion and live in some sub 1.5C utopia as long as we focus on where we get our energy and resources from. Stop focusing on consumption quantity because it just sounds like envy.
Heat pumps just move heat around... They do not create heat. If they did - we'd have some violations of laws. All they're doing is going to transfer geothermal, solar, wind, etc. power into heat transfer - which is transferring heat from outdoors into your home... Which then goes back outdoors at some point. There isn't any "heat" creation here.
What model are you speaking of where they claim electric cars are not viable for the future? (Assuming renewable energy sources and sustainable use of natural resources, etc.)
I'm not going to dispute the point about heat pumps more because I don't know enough about them to argue credibly about it. Maybe you're right and it's a perfect solution to the problem.
> What model are you speaking of where they claim electric cars are not viable for the future? (Assuming renewable energy sources and sustainable use of natural resources, etc.)
That assumes away the problem I think. Is it really inconceivable that we're going to start hitting limits to resources, especially if we're doubling down on cars which all have their own large batteries, sprawling asphalt, and all the rest of it? It seems really hard to imagine to me that we're going to chance on technology that makes it just as sustainable for everyone to live in a McMansion and drive an F-150 an hour to work as for people to ride trains or bicycles and live in denser housing. Certainly we could do much better than now before we started to nip at that stuff but I feel like there have to be limits. If it's so easy and we have all the answers I have to wonder why all the kicking and screaming to get there.
You have been sucked into believing by corporations that you are the issue but it's the corporations who are the issue. They want you to take personal responsibility for their issues. Everything is pushed onto the end user and the individual as responsibility rather than a corporation to do things in a manner that is best for us all. You know why? Cause that's good for the corporations! They can do horrible things and not have to deal with any of the externalities that they're creating and rake in the profit! These strategies have been mainstream for well over 50 years now.
Keep believing that personal responsibility is really the key to solving climate change but it will continue to do nothing and mean nothing. The responsibility is within your governmental body to take over how corporations are producing their products, harvesting resources, generating power, and the externalities that their products create.
Do you really think it's a coincidence that the products sold to you are not environmentally-friendly/sustainable/whatever? It's not because consumers demand them... Consumers just want something cheap... But consumers aren't paying for externalities upfront... neither are corps... No one pays. Thus, cheaper. You offer two comparable products but one is cheaper - people choose the cheaper one! On top of that, our world and economy is built on these natural resources. Imagine if oil became $0 or $1000/barrel. It'd wreck certain parts of the economy either way - there is a heavy investment and lobbying infrastructure built upon maintaining the status quo.
You really are using the personal responsibility framework to a high extent. Corps are the biggest issue. Most issues of CO2 generators and other such things - people are very happy to use their replacements because there is very little difference in quality of life (sometimes it's even improved). The things people most want that create CO2 and there's no way around it ever are very low contributors to CO2 overall. You could easily wipe out over half of CO2 emissions in USA by just converting everything to renewable energy resources. (electric cars + electricity production + using heat pumps)
Is this really a sacrifice?
I can't see the US ever being willing to make these sacrifices though. If you compare the $/sqft for housing in the US vs. Europe the difference is shocking (even in big cities like Seattle vs. London), same for gasoline prices, etc.
I would be more concerned with urban design and zoning than square footage. Bigger house means more maintenance, and bigger lot means more mowing. I for one, hate mowing.
The US has become accustomed to unparalleled comfort and luxury, with central air conditioning and multiple cars practically the norm. If anything, I imagine they'll try to enforce strict emissions controls on developing nations to have the pretence of doing something.
A car is not a luxury. It is an unfortunate and out of control necessity that helps increases the cost of living and make societies less egalitarian, because it is a requirement to use car to do anything of note.