this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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[–] Emirose@beehaw.org 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 children)

As someone who once HAD to commute for a 45 minute car ride to work... not all commutes work with this. Public transit can help with a lot of those, but unless we rezone and rebuild most cites for shorter commutes, it won't replace all cars.

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[–] Cowbob45@beehaw.org 6 points 2 years ago (10 children)

Yes but not everyone lives in a flatland like the dutch do, I believe I could fully transition to a bicycle if cars weren't the top priority on my city, but I know many friends that live in parts of the city that are basically mountains.

[–] mustyOrange@beehaw.org 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Id say the car-centric city design is a huge factor as well. At least in the US, most large cities had electric trains, and we tore it down for parking lots. Fixing that problem would be incredibly daunting.

Id say a good step would be to have high speed rails that go between major cities, coupled with bringing some of those electric trolleys back. As a Michigander, I think a good line would be Detroit -> stops along I96 -> Grand Rapids -> Benton Harbor -> More stops along 131/I94 -> Chicago.

[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 years ago

That's why bikes have gears. You should be able to go up any reasonable hill with a bike that has more than one gear.

E-bikes are another option, but not a necessity.

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[–] anthoniix@beehaw.org 5 points 2 years ago

The problem with this is that while true, the solution for lower emissions will look different for every place.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

I like this idea in principle, but the annual CO2 emissions for 2018 was about 35 billion tons. This makes the drop barely even impact our total production, let alone be enough to stop global warming.

It's still a worthy goal, but we'd be better off focusing on bigger wins, where even a few percent of carbon reductions would dwarf this number (or pushing for both).

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[–] dollop_of_cream@beehaw.org 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

There is a very impressive set of reasons why we could and should encourage less CO2 intensive forms of transport, indeed many actions. However, these arguments always seem to me to take the pattern of picking the extreme example of whatever good we are hoping to achieve and then implying that everyone else could easily make the switch. There is always a wide and natural variety in things and this is true for differences between nations too. Extreme examples used like this often just end up making a bigger divide between people because the discussion misses all of the important differences that constrain choices and shape outcomes. We just end up talking from our own perspectives and experiences rather than exploring the complicated and difficult questions of how we can produce localised and regional responses to CO2 emissions drawn from fossil fuels.

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[–] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 4 points 2 years ago (4 children)

You can ride a bike to work or the store around here, but you'll be walking home. Bikes are way too easy to quietly steal.

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[–] aMalayali@beehaw.org 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

It probably would be helpful, but it wouldn't be that useful in the tropical regions, where you have monsoons with strong rain/wind and hot summers.
Physical exertion in the sun is not always fun.

It'd be fun when the destination is closer and when the weather is nice tho.

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