Providing decent living with minimum energy: A global scenario

[hunter]

8. So, how do we fix that?

Affordable fossil fuel free energy would be a good start.

From there ordinary government regulations can encourage the building and rebuilding of cities that have a much smaller per-capita environmental footprints than automobile dependent low density suburbs.

We already know such lifestyles are desirable. Some people pay crazy prices for them. And people now living in extreme poverty, with no safe water, no flush toilets, no modern sanitation systems, and no electricity, would happily trade up to an urban lifestyle with safe comfortable housing and good work.

Here in the U.S.A. many people with very limited incomes are forced to maintain cars because they live in places where no car equals no work and they can't see any way out. That's unacceptable. It's a great fallacy that owning a car is some kind of freedom. It's not.