But why? We have these amazing vehicles called cars. Climate control, audio systems, comfortable seats. Why would I instead dress for an Everest expedition just to go to the store?

Also, I’ve never fallen off of my car and broken a bone or scraped my knee. A car is also a lot harder to steal than a bike. And a car can drive fast.

Why do people insist on lowering the standard of living? Eliminating gas stoves, high powered tea kettles in the UK, next they’ll be coming after our air conditioners claiming that the indigenous equatorial people do just fine by putting a cabbage leaf under their hat.

We have cars, airplanes, air conditioners, and all sorts of great advancements. But there is a growing group that would have us riding bicycles, taking trains, and eating bugs. There are people that want to reverse progress with a religious zeal that’s frankly pretty frightening. The climate alarmists are like the Amish met up with Jehovahs Witnesses and are proselytizing their version of self-inflected austerity on the world.

Thank you for speaking up here. Strongly agreed. I sometimes wonder if humans are prone to nihilism. Something reptilian or instinctual that fights comfort and convenience.

Your car gives you a private benefit at a public cost. That's the problem.

Car infrastructure is ruinously expensive and the effects of driving harm everyone, either from the pollution generated in the long-term or in the short-term when statistically you are 100-300x more likely to kill someone than if you were on a bicycle.

Maybe. It seems to me that the development of cars has coincided with radical improvement of human wellbeing on every conceivable measure. Yes, you would pollute less if you rode a bike. And even less if you walked. And even less if you never left the house. But having a car opens up a world of possibilities and luxuries that a hundred years ago were simply unimaginable. Most reasonable people would agree that those extraordinary benefits merit some trade-offs.

> having a car opens up a world of possibilities and luxuries that a hundred years ago were simply unimaginable.

[citation needed]

Many wonderful cities and regions around the world are perfectly enjoyable with no need for cars. Or are you telling me that people living in central Paris, or London, or New York, or Valencia are suffering a substandard life because they use public transit and walk or bike to their destinations instead?

Even regional travel can be easily done without a car - I recently traveled from Edinburgh, to Glasgow, all the way up to Fort William, then back from Skye all the way back to Edinburgh with no car. At no point did I wish I had one. Why is this so hard for us in the US to accomplish?

Having just returned from both London and Paris -- yes, having the ability to tow my motorboat to the reservoir is awesome! And having the ability to just drive out of the city whenever I want is awesome! And having the ability to get to work in a/c without dressing for the weather is awesome. Traveling around without being in close proximity to sick people is awesome! Having cars, and the infrastructure to support them, is decidedly better in my assessment than relying on an e-bike, mass transit, and rental services. I think most people would agree with me.

> And having the ability to just drive out of the city whenever I want is awesome!

This is what does it for me. And a rental just doesnt cut it. My family and I enjoy road trips, even just weekend getaways, and owning a vehicle makes that possible. Also, just regular things like getting kids to rowing practice after school makes all alternatives impractical. There’s no way to get them there on time with public transit and it’s def. too far for an e-bike to get there on time.

The period of one's life during which one needs to drive the kids to rowing practice passes by fairly rapidly, in the course of the entire life. Structuring our entire society around the use cases of the very few isn't a good idea. Indeed, it would be highly beneficial to busy parents of busy kids if everyone else would get the hell off the road. Most of the people on the road have little reason to be there, other than that we've made it the default choice and outlawed everything else. If people could easily walk to the grocery store, or bicycle to the dentist, or ride a bus to their office, your trip to the boathouse would be ever so much easier.

Why not long train ride in the countryside? Or a train tour through the mountain peak. If we're talking luxuries, it's possible to make trains luxurious. They have sleeper trains for example.

A lot of thing are possible or the equivalent in a train oriented society.

Your argument does not scale. There can never be enough car infrastructure, the more you have the longer you have to drive to get outside the city. Luxury is very much about perception, it is not obviously true that having your own steel cage with a/c is better.

For me living near other people and the rich human culture that comes from that is luxury. If you need a car for that you might just have made other choices in life, they are still choices.

I live in London and can do all those things!

Like a decent number of Londoners I own a car. I love my car and I love driving. But I use my car once, maybe twice a month, almost always to leave the city.

I lend it to friends when they need a car too. Many people who don’t own a car use rentals and car clubs for the same things.

So I agree, it’s great to have a car to get out to a lake, beach, or mountain or to transport stuff and people to the countryside, go camping, pick up heavy things, etc.

But that’s a tiny fraction of journeys. My contribution to traffic and pollution is minimal.

I walk or cycle 90% of my journeys within the city and use public transport for almost all of the rest. I regularly take trains to other cities and towns rather than drive.

Do I want a world no cars at all?

Of course not!

Do I want infrastructure, policies, and costs/taxation on car use to reduce the amount of totally unnecessary, selfish car use that makes the city noisier, more dangerous, more polluted, and less pleasant for everyone except the driver, even when there’s a perfectly good walking/cycling/transit alternative for that journey?

Absolutely.

> having the ability to just drive out of the city whenever I want is awesome

I can get out of London whenever I want on a train.

Because the American dream includes a spacious single family home with land. That plus a growing population and rising housing costs means plummeting density that is infeasible to cover with public transportation. You can try to fight the river here but but this aspect of our culture is so deeply ingrained that it practically defines the American experience. Any "solution" that necessitates taking this away is never going to happen. Despite what the special relationship might imply the US and Europe are culturally very different once you leave "urban cores." We are a country of homesteaders. Living in an apartment is the "thing young people do until they can afford their own house" rather than a kind of permanent residence.

I personally don't see this as a good or bad thing, just a cultural difference that necessitates a different approach like electric cars over public transportation.

> Any "solution" that necessitates taking this away is never going to happen.

The solution is 'if you want it, pay for it'. It should be immensely more expensive to drive long distances to do everything and even though it isn't, it surely isn't getting any cheaper. If you can afford it and don't care about the effects, then do it, but it I don't think most people realistically can much longer.

I think the issue with this kind of argument is that we are paying for it right now. That money doesn't come from nowhere, the roads are paid for by the property and gas taxes of those burbs. There's no substance to this plan other than "disincentivize a lifestyle I don't approve of by imposing artificial costs." Such a plan will go nowhere because most people want this lifestyle. Compared to living in a house becoming an apartment dweller is seen as a massive step down in quality of life (and I think they're right, having land, space, no shared walls or landlord is awesome I'm saving for a house and super jealous of my friends who already own). Even my friends who live in the city are planning to move out and settle down eventually. Tanking property values is also a fast track to another recession. No one will vote for your plan. This is what I mean by it being part of our culture. Anything that takes away like the goal for most Americans will be dead on arrival.

> "disincentivize a lifestyle I don't approve of by imposing artificial costs."

I don't see a problem with this. That lifestyle is unsustainable.

> That money doesn't come from nowhere, the roads are paid for by the property and gas taxes of those burbs.

Two points: many roads get federal and state funding from the general tax fund meaning we all pay for them whether we drive or not, and the suburbs are going bankrupt because car infrastructure is so expensive. https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI

As for your other complaints, why is living in an apartment you own in a city with shared public spaces rather than owning private land such a downgrade?

For context I grew up in a single family home in a burb but now live in a city.

* No green space, having a shared public park is very different than being surrounded by mature trees, gardens, (and woods depending on where you are).

* $/sq ft is uneconomical to actually do anything in an apartment except live there. Maker spaces are overpriced and a huge pain in the ass to actually use.

* It's not my land so I can't do what I want with it like pant vegetables, install a hot tub, add a fire pit and grill.

* I can make loud noise at all hours of the night. Sure I'll be a good neighbor and not blast the sound system into my yard at 2am but I can watch movies, play video games, or play loud music (or honestly, have sex) whenever I want.

* Ventilation is a million times better which is needed if you like to cook and have a gas range.

* Having the space for a large fridge and chest freezer lets me buy much nicer food because I have a place to store it.

* Being able to have real real gym equipment lowers the barrier to making a habit of exercising. Dragging myself to the gym after work is such a hassle.

* Having extra bedrooms means we can host family who are too old to crash on a couch or take friends in who are between apartments or struggling financially.

* The schools are just nicer, not just from an education perspective but having acres of land for sports, recess, and playground equipment is totally different.

* A lifestyle where you have a car makes you a lot more mobile for weekend trips. I can pack the car and in two hours be on a lake.

I don't care about greenspaces and I think you are giving way too much credit to lawns in suburbs. It is not usually a 'green space' any more than a city park is.

I live in a very tiny apartment and I can do almost all of the things you are claiming you want to. I don't want to dox myself, but for much cheaper than a home in the burbs I have pretty much every amenity you described plus 24/7 security which handles visitors and deliveries, plus all the things found in a normal home (including a full gym) and more within one elevator ride. I can't do my laundry in my underwear but putting on sweatpants isn't difficult.

On top of that, everything I want to do or need to do is just a step outside or at most a few minutes on a transit line or a few tens of minutes on a bike ride.

All big box stores deliver and grocery stores too, and I think a tip + delivery fee is a tad cheaper than gas + insurance + maintainance.

Also, you might be surprised regarding schools in US cities...plenty of people go to public schools in cities and get great educations, plus they also experience diversity and when they get old enough they can walk themselves there.

But what's great is we can all choose. What's not so great is that my lifestyle is sustainable and most suburban lifestyles aren't.

The issue is that once you want to do one thing that isn't feasible in an apartment (I'm a metalworker) it's game over. All my stuff is set up at one of my friend's garages. That same friend's whole backyard is entirely vegetables and their front is fruit trees. Everyone has that one thing. My sister in law raises chickens and goats, my boss who lives on the edge of a public wood hunts and processes the meat. My dad collects rare books and my childhood basement is set up control humidity and temperature.

> plus they also experience diversity and when they get old enough they can walk themselves there

I was in the minority as a white girl in my suburban elementary school and I walked there starting in 4th grade. I biked then drove myself in high school. All the best schools in my state are in the rich burbs and so if/when I want to have kids I'll be looking to buy my way into that.

I think people have weird ideas about suburban life being just lifeless cookie-cutter rows of identical houses but I loved the diverse community of really cool and interesting families I grew up with.

Those things are not what I am talking about -- they seem more akin to rural than 'suburban'. To get on the same page, this is what I am specifically talking about:

* https://imgur.com/CpSzn34

If you want to talk about growing your own food, livestock, and vocations which require workshops, we are having a completely different discussion.

Nah. It's inefficient, uneconomical, and unsustainable. That's why we have to change sooner or later.

And we have to admit...it's lousy as well.

I accept that we should remove the subsidies to cars (but somehow the same people think it’s fine to subsidise public transport?). Car owners should pay for pollution and parking. Then we can let the market sort it out.

Great! Now do roads.

The same people who complain about subsidies to public transport don't bat an eye at hundreds of millions spent on extra highway lanes. The typical argument there is "the economic benefit of mobility pays for it!" Yet that same case doesn't apply to public transit, somehow, where the costs are lower and the number of people moved is higher.

(and good luck on the parking, considering my neighbors are up in arms over a proposal to increase yearly parking sticker fees from $40ish to $70ish and the true cost of a parking space is more like $500...)

Point of order, all infrastructure in the United States is ruinously expensive. There are zero forms of transport infrastructure other than private shuttles that maintain fare box equilibrium

Cars harm the quality of life through pollution, noise, and accidents as well damage to our metabolic health.

They are loud, pollute the air and take up tons of space. Imagine if your city wasnt 90% space for cars to drive or park on

And imagine if your laptop was made of chocolate. Live in reality.

> The climate alarmists

It never ceases to amaze me how these concerns about the climate can be so casually dismissed when other people half-way across the world are literally waiting for their homes to disappear forever.

Whole countries, usually poor, that contributed peanuts to our greenhouse gas emissions, some of which (Nauru) have been transformed into a hellscape by foreign mining operations, will disappear underwater in the coming decades.

Others, already economically fragile, will see most of their infrastructure and economic investment underwater in the next decades.

And given the inertia of these phenomenon, nothing can be done anymore. Stopping all carbon and methane emissions wouldn’t change a thing.

I totally get that we don’t have to agree with your so-called "climate alarmists" solutions and methods. But I cannot understand how one can dismiss the issue itself so casually.

https://time.com/6217104/climate-crisis-pacific-islands-unin...

And how many of them would leap immediately at the opportunity to drive around in cars?

Your point being?

I fail to see the relevance. Is it supposed to be a rebuttal? How so?

Even those suffering the largest consequences of carbon emissions are desperate to realize the profound benefits that accrue to an energy intensive lifestyle. Even when measured one directly against the other, the trade-offs are usually worth it.

Yes, everyone wants to be rich. It isn't sustainable without some kind of cheap and infinite on-demand clean energy source. Until we get that we need to cut back on doing some things. Can you help or are you too entitled and selfish?

And so?

I’m afraid you are entirely missing my point.

Here, I’ll help you.

1) We don’t have to agree with their proposed solutions of technological and quality of life regressions. I am all for sustainable technological solutions that could help us preserve the best environment for us while keeping or even improving our living standards.

Here’s the relevant quote for you:

> "I totally get that we don’t have to agree with your so-called "climate alarmists" solutions and methods."

2) The problems posed by climate change are nonetheless real. They are dramatically affecting some people’s every day lives today. They will be totally and irrevocably ruining entire countries' tomorrow. There is nothing that can be done about it anymore. So anyone calling anyone else a "climate alarmist" can only be explained by either ignorance, lack of awareness, or a difficult to describe self-absorbed absence of care and consideration for others.

> "But I cannot understand how one can dismiss the issue itself so casually."

Regarding your so-called argument. People smoke. All over the world. People eat crap. All over the world. People drink excessively and too often. All over the world. People even pay bribes and elect corrupt officials. All over the world.

While I do consider that people are free to do whatever they want, to both their themselves, their bodies, and our world, whatever people really isn’t necessarily right or beneficial. Simply because a behavior is prevalent doesn't make it ethical, healthy, or in the best interest of the individuals themselves or society in general.

I supposed there is somehow a profound benefit of being stuck in traffic, of dealing with the daily stress of driving and the countless potential near miss. It's a wonder that motor accidents are as low as it is in our society.

Meanwhile, I can get on the train and largely vegetate, or do work, despite all the flaws and travesty that is typical in a North America metro system.

We are the richest society on Earth. We can move heaven and earth in making the best mass transit transportation system in the world.

> the trade-offs are usually worth it.

This is your answer to a comment about people "waiting for their homes to disappear forever."

Ok then pay the proper cost for it and don't expect the cost to be externalised to society. That's the funny thing about the arguments of why should I care about everyone else (because that is what your argument boils down to, screw future generations, screw people concerned about car deaths, screw people who want liveable cities...), you still want everyone else to pick up the cost.

> Why do people insist on lowering the standard of living?

As someone who lives in a dense city, other people's cars are lowering MY standard of living. Can't cross in the middle of the street. Can't enjoy that nice terrace to the fullest because of the traffic noise. Can't have room to bike safely because of the long line of metal boxes littering the curb and which are apparently more important than I am. These drivers don't even pay fully for the damn space, I'm subsidizing them with my taxes.

You have to look beyond your own comfort a little bit and realize there are externalities to it. Cars require a ton of space that could be used for nice things like trees, terraces, bike lanes, gardens or extra housing. They cause a lot of noise pollution and they just make it a lot less pleasant for those of us who actually want to walk or bike.