I would rather not, but they don’t allow me that choice, and they will also fight to the last man and beyond 4C warming for their „right“ to endanger me and my kin, as well as accelerate the rapid destruction of the only known habitat.

It's true that the inevitable conclusion is that we can't rely on individual voluntary actions to solve climate change, but the obvious plan B is government regulation, not vigilantism.

If I could, I'd give up ever having to drive again in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, here we have few realistic options given where employers are located and how poor the transportation options that remain. It's a racket.

But personal automobiles start creating issues when we are required to drive to pick up groceries or drop kids off at school. When everyone does this we get terrible traffic, suffocating pollution and an environment that winds up being built to focus on machines over people.

This is killing our health, our relationships and our environment. We don’t want to ban cars, we want a culture that gives transportation choice: driving, biking or walking. So many parts of our cities and suburbs right now only give one choice: “driving.”

Last thing, I’m also an introvert, but running errands and commuting on a bike is great. Aside from dangerous or aggressive drivers, most of my interactions with other people is limited and when it does happen is positive. No one really bothers you like they do on transit or while walking.

Edit: I did, in fact, say "anti-car".

our argument isn't that everyone should just stop driving, leaving everything else as is. that would, as you point out, obviously not work

our argument is that there needs to be feasible alternatives to driving, which in many parts of the world is already the case and it works great (in fact, it works better than north american car dependency)

i do want to call out one more thing though

even if it was true that most people like their cars and driving (which isn't true at all)

given that the degree to which people drive is literally becoming an existential threat not only to future generations but already to us now

should the rest of us really just go ah we'll just let it slide then? like yes they're destroying our planet but, they really like their cars and driving

i don't share that logic

An obvious observation: Individual change and collective change are not mutually exclusive, so I think the choice between them is a bit of a false dilemma.

To pick an extreme example: Me not stabbing anyone is not enough to end knife crime in general, but this individual action (of not stabbing anyone) can still be considered an ethical baseline, so it's still good for me to not do that. Similarly, you aren't going to stop climate collapse by not driving, but...

If I spent all my life avoiding "car dependence" at all, much less with the goofy fervor of the virtue-signalling green crew on the internet, I'd have roughly zero impact on climate change.

As it stands, I get to enjoy big ol' diesel trucks and dirtbikes and motorcycles.

Plenty of people don't enjoy these things and are happy sitting on the bus and enjoying things in cities, movie theaters or museums or whatever.

I just have different preferences.

Luckily, my preferences seem rare, so it's no worry.

Also, the biggest driver of climate change is the sun.

Manufacturing cars requires a tremendous amount of energy and natural resources. Everything we manufacture and consume punishes the earth.

Myself, I've decided to eschew driving. Our perceived dependence on automobiles is insane. The roads are insane. No car is going to make me cool. I want no part of it.

I'm also saying, artificially creating issues by removing roads, making them one way etc, in order to create terrible traffic, in order to then justify removing cars completely, is a form of manipulative abuse, being inflicted on people by government. I'm not going to cheer abusive behaviour.