THis has bothered me, too (the original post).

Around here, the "remedies" are the "painless, something you can do and say you're doing something so you feel better" things... *nothing* that involves an actual change of *habit.*

I sometimes wonder if the folks whose livelihoods are invested in our voracious consumption of resources are protecting their own interests; then I reflect that generally, stupidity is morelikely to be a cause than conspiracy, and people think "well, *I* would never ride my bike, so we can't expect anybody else to."

Autos have, gradually, gotten more and more expensive and inconvenient - but it's been gradual. Makes me think of the sci-fi-ish story I read about where some kind of bacteria had infected gasoline and suddenly made cars periodically explode, and *that* had cured us of that little habit... and if there were some other gentler way to nudge people into having to cut back on car use and find out how relatively easy it is, once you've got the drill down. We've certainly "adjusted" to a whole lot of other less pleasant "drills."