This guy Alec Dubro (never heard of him before either) writes in The Progressive that we won’t make any significant progress toward addressing climate change until we get rid of all the cars.

He says:

Without divine intervention – which seems to be the basis for most energy reduction schemes – there is simply no way to maintain both the atmosphere and personal transportation. Even if the population were frozen at its present level, even if economic growth stopped the sheer number of people wanting – and under the present regime, need – personal transportation makes any plan to reduce car pollution by increasing efficiency is futile. The personal automobile must be abandoned, and quickly.

It would be better to do this in a measured and humane way, easing both automobile workers and users into a post-car world. It needs a societal consensus, requiring major shifts of goals and expectations, and few of us will take these steps on our own. But this change will eventually happen to us whether we like it or not, perhaps in time to stave off climactic disaster.

That’s some kind of fantasy world.  Maybe the Europeans will calmly surrender their cars and use public transportation, but Americans aren’t so easily persuaded.  Getting rid of our cars would be much more of a sacrifice than recycling or using cloth bags at the grocery store.  I seriously doubt that there will ever be a “societal consensus” to ditch our cars for government transports, but there’s something quite refreshing about a liberal who is honest about his desires / intentions for public policy.