Also, I think there's optimism in people talking about how living a happier, more social life can also be one that happens to be lower in carbon intensity. I currently live in a very car-dependent detached house on an island (so reliant on planes to go anywhere) and am viewing flats now in a place where I can live car-free and go places via train.
And on top of all that, every time I have lived in a place where I could walk, bike, or take public transit, I was happier, healthier, and saw my friends _much_ more. But people have been sold a lie that living near their friends and being able to take a train or bus places is a "downgrade".
Thing is, denialism and stopping progress makes people looking for solutions also more extreme.
So who knows. Maybe part of the answer is partially ignoring or severely discounting certain Internet discourse.
It is important to also make broader policy changes, like regulating wasteful plastic packaging in the pipeline (not just at the retail, but storing manufacturing/processing materials).
We have billionaires like Bill Gates telling us to eat bugs instead of meat to “save the planet” while he forcibly e-wastes billions of devices with Windows 10’s end-of-life. We have EV manufacturers pushing to mine lithium, which like most mining is incredibly ecologically damaging, while simultaneously making repair (and thus the sustainability of their cars) nearly impossible. Petroleum products produced en masse and discarded into literal trash islands in the oceans. The destruction of wildlife habitats such as the rainforests. Hell, entire cities in China are nearly uninhabitable due to mass pollution from corporations moving production there.
While we are all to blame, some are more to blame than others. And no, going “carbon neutral” doesn’t mean anything when you’re still actively dumping waste products onto the Earth.
I just want to ride my bike and take the train for most of my daily needs, maybe using an hourly car hire for the other trips.
If that's what you want, cool, you almost certainly can find a life situation where it's possible. It's people who want to forcibly make everyone live that way that are the problem.
The opposite, really. Car-dependence is the default and being able to live well without a car, especially as a family, is very challenging. Sadly we've forcibly made everyone live that way (imagine that!) except for the few who can afford well designed places.
What if what we really need to do is wonder what we should do?
We need to push positive solutions (nuclear power and carbon capture) that aren't thinly veiled religion and politics.