> which is that you don’t like the life choices most other Americans are making
I think this is the fundamental problem. I don't have a bone to pick with oil and gas companies. It's a resource, we need to address climate change, w/e, but fossil fuels are useful and should be used within reason.
But I do have a bone to pick with this idea that Americans are making a choice because I think they're not making a choice with complete information, they're incentivized to make certain choices, and they don't have a good feedback loop to see how their choices affect them. This ranges from highway construction which displaces natural habitats and eventually bankrupts towns and cities as initial costs are subsidized by the federal government (inflation anyone?) to obesity, racism, to loss of local businesses and economies and many more.
And why would their choices be so different to their counterparts in Europe? Especially Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, France, UK etc? Their counterparts in China?
If the infrastructure is built for a certain vehicle then it's not really a choice is it?
Is the Netherlands building 4 to 8 lane highways, tearing down buildings in major cities and building overpasses, and expanding streets so that they can easily fit and park Ford F-150 size trucks? Are there multi-acre shopping malls, Wal-Marts, and associated parking lots?
> If the infrastructure is built for a certain vehicle then it's not really a choice is it?
Right... that's why I don't agree that anybody is choosing here.
Culture, history, and wealth. Americans are more individualistic and anti-social than Europeans, and much more so than Chinese. Some have theorized that the exodus of the most disagreeable 1/4 of the Swedish population to the U.S. in the 19th century laid the groundwork for the modern Swedish welfare state: https://slate.com/business/2019/01/scandinavian-socialism-mi....
This is a continuing phenomenon. The fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. today is Asians. But when polled, only 7-8% of Asians in Asia would migrate if they had the opportunity: https://news.gallup.com/poll/245255/750-million-worldwide-mi.... The ones that come here are the anti-social ones like my parents, who don't mind leaving behind their kin and ancestral ties to make their home in a foreign country. (They live in a suburb with no sidewalks and drive an SUV, of course.)
History: The American continent has been populated by migration. My wife's family landed on the east coast in the 1700s and kept moving west until they reached Oregon in the 1800s. This has both created a culture of valuing unrestricted mobility, and also as a practical matter meant that most development is greenfield. In Germany even tiny villages have been settled for hundreds of years--there are roads, old churches, etc., that force development into a particular pattern. My town in Maryland was mostly farmland just 50 years ago, and most of the stretch between here and DC is still farmland. The giant freeway connecting the two was built through 20 miles of nothing in the 1950s. But note that greenfield development happens in Europe too, and there's plenty of car-dependent suburbs in parts of Germany.
Wealth: Americans are significantly richer than Europeans, and vastly richer than Chinese. Many, many Chinese people would love to have a house on an acre of land and drive around in an air conditioned car all day. And Americans can afford to actually do that.
Europe has much older cities than the US, and larger amounts of land were already taken up, which has limited the amount of "freeway"-style development.
Arguably if it had NOT been for the interstate highway push in the US we'd have an America that would look more European.
I definitely agree with the latter paragraph. But it’s important to note that places like Amsterdam did invest heavily into car infrastructure as well. It’s not completely true that car dependency was staved off by existing road sizes.
Like you allude to, the US was bulldozed for the automobile. We didn’t develop around it. Amsterdam was following a similar path until mass protests in the 70s about people being slaughtered by cars. (https://inkspire.org/post/amsterdam-was-a-car-loving-city-in...)
And over the past several decades, they have made vast changes and redevelopments that we should have been following as well.
And now Amsterdam isn’t just amazing for cyclists and pedestrians… it’s also great for driving. ( https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k)
My point is that consumer demand drives car production and fossil fuel use, not the other way around. If your theory is that people's buying choices are uninformed, that just means you need to focus on informing and persuading people. You're not going to get the results you want by attacking oil and car companies, who are simply selling highly commoditized products in enormously competitive industries.
I think this is the fundamental problem. I don't have a bone to pick with oil and gas companies. It's a resource, we need to address climate change, w/e, but fossil fuels are useful and should be used within reason.
But I do have a bone to pick with this idea that Americans are making a choice because I think they're not making a choice with complete information, they're incentivized to make certain choices, and they don't have a good feedback loop to see how their choices affect them. This ranges from highway construction which displaces natural habitats and eventually bankrupts towns and cities as initial costs are subsidized by the federal government (inflation anyone?) to obesity, racism, to loss of local businesses and economies and many more.