What? I don't think there are many environmentalists who "don't like rural people" and have a problem with pickup trucks used where they're appropriate ( like on a farm). In a country like the US, they're often abused as a suburban vehicle, which is a preposterous waste which deserves railing on against.
Conversely, there's a lot of overlap between environmentalists and people who like to go outside and get off the beaten path. Driving in remote areas a lot pretty much necessitates having a truck. I've never heard any animosity from environmentalists towards truck owners who actually use their truck for truck things.
Even in this example alone you neglected to consider the number of trucks that are used to tow something. Say you need (or want!) to tow a heavy trailer once a month or every other month. Should you buy one vehicle that can do this, and then use it to commute 90% of the time, or should you buy two vehicles, and let one sit around unused most of the time?
Now what about the person that needs to haul some things? Surely a small trailer + SUV is superior to a truck? Not so fast: gotta store that trailer and be comfortable with it. My guess is for 95% of people, a truck for utility purposes is far superior.
Finally, newer trucks are actually surprisingly efficient. I just got 22mpg 360 miles round trip in my full ton pickup truck. Been shopping for minivans, aside from the rare hybrid minivan, they only get around 26mpg on highway.
Or maybe rent a vehicle if it's only for towing once every other month.. Unless renting costs upwards of 1k, it'd be many years before buying makes sense for usage once every other month.
On the other hand, commuting through a city can be done just as well or better by a car in every sense. 22mpg is terrible mileage compared to a modern car and the fact that it seems good reinforces my point of how wasteful it is to commute in a truck.
Also, 22mpg efficient. You gotta be kidding me. You should getting at least 35mpg before you can call yourself efficient. A Vauxhall Zafira (MPV) can do 41mpg. A smart car can do 67mpg.
The lifetime amount of fuel/electricity used by a vehicle generally accounts for only half of the total energy. The other half is in it's manufacturing and disposal/recycling.
And there's additional lost efficiency than just the mileage, because you're using twice the embedded energy and presumably aren't doubling the amount of driving you're doing.
Maybe rentals or sharing schemes work in some cases, but they present their own inefficiencies, like less than perfect allocation, and transferring vehicles back and forth for each switch.
But for the majority of cases, it's much more environmentally friendly to own one single vehicle that meets all of your needs, even if it's relatively inefficient.
The most efficient vehicle for any particular person is usually the one that's already been built. (Which is why cash for clunkers was actually a bailout with negative environmental impacts, despite its branding of improved efficiency.)
You can then safely lump that caricature in the same bucket as people with actual policy proposals, and ignore the latter outright.
They focus on ideal outcomes over what we can realistically accomplish - I've had plenty of discussions where people just ignore the trillions in infrastructure we have baked into steel and concrete, as well as people habits and lifestyle - folks honestly seem to think that with enough political will you can just turn all of that off in 2-5 years.
As with everything in society, we didn't get here overnight, and turning a vast ship takes time.
The problems of pollution, climate change, etc are real. The science is clear.
Please don't make up an imaginary bad actor who has bad motivations for why they want to solve or improve some of these problems. This is a rhetoric device designed to distract people from the problems and solutions by getting them to dislike, distrust or hate the people trying to help.
