Btw: CO2 emission taxes, road taxes and congestion charges are a great idea.
I'm also unsure what the proposed solution to Bob being 10 miles away is. Should I only make friends with people who work at the same place?
I want to say here that this comment sounds extremely alien to me, to the point that out of context I would have taken it as satirical.
I know you're serious, but there's probably a big portion of people to whom discussing the problem of walking in the rain to the bus stop sounds completely ridiculous, in any context, and as as something we must consider when talking about climate change policy, well, even more ridiculous.
I've lived in rainy places, and you just wear a raincoat, boots, maybe an umbrella (not always), and carry on.
This kind of disproportionate weight assigned to even the smallest levels of personal discomfort, when discussing these problems, is what most people are denouncing here. And this bias might be what pushes people towards techno-solutionism that doesn't have a chance of actually solving our problems in the time frame that we need.
An umbrella solves that at minimal cost.
For the record, I don't think all car use is wrong, but the example of visiting a friend 10 miles away isn't a very good one. Someone shouldn't be expected to buy a car and its associated maintenance, tax, and externalities, just to visit someone that nearby.
“But my quality of life!”
Sorry but getting rained on a bit is least of our troubles. Imagine there are places like Netherlands where it rains all the time and people (including very old ones) bike around the city…
if you want to shape the behaviors of the world's people as you suggest, you'll need fascism. hard sell when there are already two paths to clean energy abundance, two paths to sustainable driving, and many paths to damage control competing in the public discourse.
I live in Tokyo. As I'm replying to you, I'm coming back from meeting my friends that live 13 miles away. This isn't uncommon. One of my best friends, I see her almost every week, lives 15 miles away from me.
Here's what I did: I cycled 5 minutes to the train station; I got on the train; I ran into a friend in the train, and we chatted the whole way; I got to the station, went to our meeting spot, and we hung out for hours, drank a bunch, had fun, until last train; then we all went back to the station, rode the train for 45 minutes, and now I'm home.
It wasn't raining today, but I hang out with my friends when it's raining too. We don't let that stop us. Take an umbrella or a raincoat or just walk for 5 minutes in the rain. It's not a big deal.
At the same time, I understand that this can feel very foreign to you. Our thoughts are molded by our environment. But I'm sure that if you lived in Tokyo you would also change your mind.
I don't know how to change your mind, but I can tell you that if you gave it a try you would change your mind. l
I'm not saying cars have no place, but they don't need to be the be all end all of transportation. There's very real negatives to cars, we're just blinded to them as long as we live in a car centric society.
I've been cycling and using public transport in the south east UK as my primary means of travel for 12 years, the car is a supplement. Update your mental models accordingly.
- you wait until it stops raining
- you bring an umbrella
- you bring a change of clothing
- you bike or walk
- you ask Bob to meet you halfway
Kids here in NL do this every day, sometimes across even longer distances (when they're high school age and live in rural parts of the country).
(That comment must be satire)
