what would make such a decline in my personal standard of living worth it?
There are many beautiful places to live on Earth where opting for a bicycle is not a compromise of any kind, but a practical choice. But we continue to build and live in places where the traffic, distances, planning are all hostile to pedestrians.
Every year is a point of no return, it's an adage that has lost it's original meaning. It's theoretically possible to reverse damage but we are a long ways from that to the extent that drastic cutting of emissions is necessary in the very short run.
> But we continue to build and live in places where the traffic, distances, planning are all hostile to pedestrians.
It's possible to strike a balance. There's no reason suburbs have to be hostile to cycling and public transpo. On the other hand, there may come a point where clean energy is so abundant that it hardly matters anymore.
The hole might be too deep to get out of it, so let's keep on digging down.
> On the other hand, there may come a point where clean energy is so abundant that it hardly matters anymore.
It still matters, even with free energy I wouldn't want to live in a place where it's miserable to take a walk.
The key point about free, clean energy is that carbon emissions would be nil even with increase in demand. That's what is meant by "it hardly matters". However, we need swift intervention right now to ensure climate doesn't descend into an uncomfortable range for many years.
Bikes are of course great, and fitness is great. But, here in Colorado, even an E bike is impractical for the vast majority of simple errands simply because of distance. If you respond with "move to a city" you are failing in empathy. The existence of long distance trips with probably bad weather make bikes not the right answer for the vast majority of people outside of major cities in America.
The right answer probably does include public infrastructure at a vast scale, but, our government cannot afford it, and it is not a foregone conclusion that the environmental impact of major construction of infrastructure is better than that of electric cars.
The reason this is not a solved problem is because simple answers like "buy a bike" are not actually answers, they are deflections. As are the answers like, "there is no solution except a pickup truck".
edit: removed sarcastic comment.
I'm not convinced of that. If the will were there, I am confident we could totally afford it.
The US will never suffer Greece or Venezuela-style bankruptcy because the whole world will go down with it considering the US dollar's status. And what is credit other than trust, if I loan Bob some money I trust Bob will be able to pay it back, now Bob might get hit by a truck or start a gambling habit and his ability to pay me back would be reduced/gone, but the USA will always have income in the form of tax from productive people paying them.
Then again maybe that's too simplistic, the USA could suffer an even worse political gridlock than what it currently has and grind to a halt.
I didn't meet a lot more friends in a compact city than out of one. I never spend weekends in front of a TV, and the people who do will probably do that no matter what.
Doesn't the massive decline that is losing the personal space of a house of my own, having land of my own, a yard of my own, no shared walls.
The reality is just different here. We're not going to bike everywhere on the highway in Ontario in the winter, when it's -20C with windchill. We can't even get the government to bring internet to every street, much less bike lanes, street lighting, better infrastructure. My partner is really trying to make change at city hall, but it's just... difficult.
And of course, we'd love to have kept living in Toronto, but it's completely unaffordable and this is where the job was. And thousands if not millions of other folks are living in similar realities. Perhaps we could convince everyone who lives in small towns to move to the city, but the city is already a difficult enough place to live.
We should do everything we can as individuals to make this better, but that "everything" is getting the local government to actually do something to make biking a real possibility. Until then, blanket statements like yours are just humblebrags about either your city, your situation, or your amazing willpower.